


The 52nd Hour: Final Shift

by ParadoxR



Series: The 52nd Hour [6]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 01, Stranded, Team, Team Bonding, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-12 21:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 23,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2124627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadoxR/pseuds/ParadoxR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So far, it’s been more frustrating that catastrophic.</p><p>Conclusion of “52nd Hour”. This is definitely the shippiest (pre-ship) installment, though some of it’s skippable/stand aloneish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Working (SJ)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for rather salty cursing. This fic is the end of "52nd Hour"; the arc continues in "Hit the Sky".

So far, it’s been more frustrating that catastrophic.

Jack sighs at the DHD from where he’s leaning against his second-least-favorite tree trunk. _Maybe third least._ He’s ranked every one on his perimeter. Twice. But this one seems to be smelling nicer as the second moon finally creeps into the sky.

_Plus, you have a great view of her a— Never mind._

He might be a little bored.

 

It’s been eleven hours since they got back from town, and they’re just about to cross the twenty-four hours left mark. One day until Earth’s Gate is unburied for an hour. _No pressure._ He’s trying not to get discouraged, but it’d be easier if his captain hadn’t spent the last ten hours mostly metaphorically beating her head against the DHD. 

He is impressed, really. She’s created quite the combination of uber-advanced alien technology and cira-Iron Age contraptions. He and Charlie had even managed to put their collective marbles together and finish the friction drives she’d hand-waved to them. She’d been _really_ happy about those cloth-and-grit covered wheels. And he’s certainly isn’t missing the bottom half of his BDU trousers in this weather.

 _Concentrate._ He’d been mentally writing his mission report. It’s an old habit born of having way too much work to do, not that he will when he gets home. Washington’s seen to that. _Do you want to get home?_ Carter grunts again and falls back on her haunches, running a hand through her cropped hair. _She needs a shower._

 _Concentrate_ _._ Though she does; that stream must’ve washed an extra ten years off him. Granted, he and the rest of the guys now smell slightly more sulfur-y than the air otherwise makes them.

“Come _on_.” The doohickey she’s playing with doesn’t answer. Her call is quiet, hushed enough to let the others sleep, but the anguish in her voice has him worried. _She needs a break._ And a grasp of just how much she’s done here.

He walks over to his captain carefully, not wanting to surprise her again. She’s actually shaking slightly from exhaustion up close. It’s the first time in a long time that Jack’s looked and smelled better than a woman.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” That one would’ve been too quiet from him to hear if he hadn’t moved, which makes him wonder whether the ‘you’ is actually inanimate.

He should talk to her, point out that if something was that wrong with her, there probably wouldn’t be so many …things set up in the ten feet between the DHD and the Gate. But he doesn’t. She’d probably snap at him again, and though he wouldn’t really blame her, she’d blame herself.

No, he really shouldn’t talk to her. _But she doesn’t need you talking at her anyway. _He flexes his hand one last time. _Just do it._

He doesn’t move.

 _Oh for cryin’ out loud. It’s not her fault she’s …nice._ Yeah, he’s going with ‘nice’. She seems nice, right? In all the appropriate ways. Only the appropriate ways. And Lou’s already had to lean on him twice since they stumbled onto this nameless, Godforsaken rock. _And you certainly don’t blame him for that, do you?_ Of course not. Lucy’s a joy and Liz is adorable. Far, far, far too adorable. _This isn’t about you, old man_.

 _Do your job._ Jack manages to shift his gaze from the back of her mud-matted blonde head. Her shirt’s hanging a little weird, enough that he can spot some of the stark red lines of her sunburn. They’re certainly not the most painful marks she’s got. And she’s shaking still. No husband or kids. Nothing big at all, though she’s not the type or age to have skeletons in even in a highly classified file. Too Ivory Tower, a USAFA ring-knocker. Who he’s gotten stranded a couple million lifetimes from the nearest other ring to knock. Or tower to …ivory. Yeah, he knows who her father is, technically, but she didn’t even use a military nomination for USAFA so he’s not sure what that means. So maybe no family, but that doesn’t mean someone’s not close enough to hurt.

_Quit stalling._

He should’ve asked the family question a _long_ time ago. Only, it’s not a question he likes asking anymore. And maybe especially not about her. _You should stop thinking._ Yeah, well, what else is new. He absolutely should avoid her. Because she’s… _a ‘her’?_ _The word’s ‘attractive’, Jack. Say it; you’re a big boy._ It’s not that he plans on doing anything enjoyable with the rest of his life, but it’d… change things. To know. For her. _And what about Teal’c?_ That’d change things too, for entirely different reasons. He bites down on the generalized pity and takes that step forward.

Sam realizes the colonel’s behind her now, though it’d taken her too long to notice. She should turn and greet him. Be a good little Airman. But he’s probably still pissed at her from snapping last time, and she’s not sure she can stop it this time either. Maybe he’ll just leave. _Do you want that?_ It must be the waveforms. The waveforms matter. That has to be it. _So, you’re screwed._ Or she doesn’t remember the frequencies. Or the amplitudes. _Where’s that photographic memory now, huh?_ Honestly, she has no idea. She needs to _speak_. A sounding board. An open ear. Just for a minute. _You miss Catharine._ Yes, well. What else is new?

Something contacts her shoulder. She almost jumps, but her head just ends up jolting backwards because her legs are too weak to move. _Nice job, Captain. You’re lucky that isn’t a mountain lion._ Her skull decelerates against something warm. And sulfur-y. _You’re leaning on your CO, you idiot._ She shoots up straight. “Sorry.”

Her CO’s arm doesn’t leave her shoulder. Maybe she needs it. She’s awake now, at least. Hard not to be. _Breathe, Sam._

Ok, so the hand doesn't seem to be helping. _Way to give her a heart attack there, Jack._ “This is good work, Captain.”

“Except it’s not working.” _You are an asshole._ He’s trying to be _nice_.

“And why’s that?” He cuts in after the expected response. He lets his hand fall as well. It’s warm. Probably hurting her sunburn. _Wait, wasn’t the hand the whole point?_

“I don’t _know._ ”

He nods. She sounds frustrated rather than disrespectful, but apparently she doesn’t think so.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“Captain, take a break.”

“No, Si…”

“ _No?_ ” The annoyance flashes too quickly through his exhaustion. He’d thought they were past the order-questioning phase. She’d been much less of a pain in the ass to take care of lately.

“Soon, S…” Sam sighs. _He thinks you’re insubordinate._ Granted, she is.

He just studies her and the incomplete sentence.

 _Tell him._ “I know I should, S… I need it.” _Yeah, because you suck at this. _“But…” COs don’t like lectures. Particularly ones she’s already accidentally snapped at. Not that either happens often, but it really only takes once. _Here’s to ‘once’._ She inhales a last wisp of confidence. _Sir,_ “If I don’t talk through this part, I’m going to lose it.” Sam deflates at the admission immediately, landing hard on the ramrod pole she runs up her spine.

Jack would’ve smiled if he didn’t feel so stupid. _How did you not catch that?_ He nods, but she hasn’t managed eye contact despite her stiff posture. _You terrify her, you know._ Well, not terrify, but he doubt she much likes him. “Ok.”

That gets eye contact, though she blinks through most of it. “Uh, oh.” She manages. He nods again for her benefit. “Thank you.”

 _Just how jerk-ish were your previous units, Captain?_ He again resists the urge to ask. The chip on her shoulder was pretty informative from the start, even if West’s name after the word ‘Pentagon’ hadn’t been.

 

Jack pulls her to her feet without asking, though he probably should have, and leads her to his second-favorite tree. The first one’s too close to their sleeping colleagues, and this one has a better view of her handiwork anyway. The change of scenery usually helps with stuff like this. He waves his free hand over her dominion. “So, talk.”

Sam gulps and nods. _This is what you wanted. _But suddenly it feels more like grilling session than a sounding board.

“Well, I think I have the locking sequence timing simulated, between the capacitors and the friction drives you finished with those wheels. I wasn’t sure how to handle the voltage amplitudes, but I made an electromagnet into a relative voltmeter. I don’t really know how much the sensor magnet weighs, though, even with the scale you carried back…”

 _So that was what it was._ Jack doesn’t massage where it dug into his back. It’s pretty clever really, using the displacement of a magnet in an electromagnetic field like that. He might’ve been able to obliquely suggest the concept. (Ok, maybe he had.) He might’ve even been able to make it eventually, but the thought of interpreting it made his head spin. Though he really hopes she can put the radio back together when she’s done.

“…but either way it’s not working.”

 _‘Either way’? Way to be a useful listener, Jack._ He hopes there’s no quiz at the end. He’s usually much better about multitasking

“I can’t even get the ring to spin, and I can’t tell if I just don’t remember the requirements or if I’ve screwed up the math.” She looks at dirt below her feet, though this patch doesn’t have any equations. It’s one of the few; she’s been coated in them all day. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“What does Teal’c say?” Jack’s brain supplies helpfully.

Her eyes squeeze closed. “He says if the DHD breaks, they wait for the ships.”

“Oh.” _Well, that’s easy then._

“Yeah.”

 _Great question there, moron._ He’s worried she’s about to cry. He should be able to handle that, after all she’s been through, but he’s recently learned that crying women aren’t his forte. He bails, _err, ‘gives her space’_ and excuses himself to check on dinner.


	2. Easy

_That was manly of you._ Dinner’s ready, but Jack waits another few beats to alert anyone. The captain looks composed now, and her cheeks have stayed dry. He takes the smoked, salted, and sulfured alien deer meat from the makeshift smoker and pokes Daniel. Lou and Charlie would wake up automatically when they want to.

“Captain.” Jack gestures more than calls. She nods and heads to him, seemingly unfazed by his sudden exit. Her movements are disciplined if pained, as usual, and she accepts the alien fruit, water, and meat with a grateful "thank you". Daniel sits up beside her as Jack stands stiffly to bring Teal’c his dinner. The general hasn’t left the perimeter in eleven hours.

 

“So,” Daniel voices around the meat clasped in his good hand, “how’s it going?”

Sam offers him the least frustrated expression she can muster before polishing off her alien plum. Daniel lets it drop, and his presence is comforting. _He does have that sort of vibe, doesn’t he?_ He reminds Sam of some of the more genial attachés that used to work with her father. They weren’t all so …brusque. She continues eating with the new man amiably.

 

Teal’c’s quiet, which is normal. Jack hands him his double rations mimes sleeping again.

“No.”

The alien has a good grasp of this word. _He knows he outranks you._ _By a lot._ Jack just nods and leaves him alone. It’s one of their longer conversations. Daniel had said something about different physiology, and to be honest, if the general wants to make Jack’s watch rotations that much easier, he’s going to let him. Hopefully that’s not an ‘ask me three times’ sort of cultural taboo. He’s happy to delegate that headache to Daniel.

Jack returns with a silent greeting to both scientists. His knees groan. It looks more comfortable next to Captain Carter, but he sits by Daniel.

He’s far past reached his ‘close to Carter’ maximum for the day.

 

Their surprisingly companionable silence lasts for a minute, punctuated only by chewing and the unfortunate but quiet burps that seem to accompany alien plums.

“You’re good, Charlie.” Jack segues, tossing the statement over his shoulder. His 2IC hasn’t moved, but he’d just awakened and would quickly assess his environment through closed eyelids. Jack’s clearance is all the major needs, and his rush to dinner wakes Lou as well. Both men settle in next to each other and grab for at the same hunk of meat. Jack lets them.

“I’ve been thinking…”

The expression wouldn’t normally have surprised Jack from either scientist, but currently that nonchalance could only be Daniel.

“Doesn’t this seem too easy?” The doctor continues.

Suddenly Jack’s _this_ close to giving his captain the Heimlich maneuver.

“ _Easy?_ ” Sam coughs at the civilian more angrily than she intends. _Damn, you’re exhausted. _She hadn’t quite realized. Or maybe she’d just forgotten. _Is that why the colonel walked out on you?_

“Sorry! Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Daniel corrects quickly. Sam’s blinks her insecurity back behind her eyes. “I just meant, how did all the dimensions work out so well? I mean there were a lot of wheels in that oppidum, but they would’ve been very specific and meaningful sizes for their societal uses. For instance, the one you put the well crank on appears to have been—”

Daniel’s half-empty water football almost falls over in his lap. The younger man frowns at where Jack kicked his knee into it but cuts to the chase anyway. “I’m just saying, doesn’t it seem… weird that it’s also what you need?” _He’s exhausted,_ Daniel tells himself by way of excuse.That’d been juvenile, even for Jack.

The captain gives Daniel her first genuine smile of the day. “Oh, not really.” The doctor’s eyebrows climb, refocused. She waves her remaining deer meat meaningfully, though no one in the circle knows what meaning that is. “I’ve been adjusting a lot based on the circumferences we found. There are any number of parameters to control around them—tangential velocity, contact points, offset theta…”

Daniel nods thoughtfully around his plum. “Oh. That sounds…” He grins, teeth slightly orange. “Hard.” And the scientific disagreement is forgotten.

She grins back to him, though it’s swallowed in a sigh. “Yeah.” She’s basically scarfed down dinner and runs a hand along her scalp again. The salt and grease spike her hair further.

_Stop. Thinking. About. Her._ Jack grimaces into his own last few bites of dinner. That’s getting harder quickly. He stands with the fleshy bone and heads back to his now third-least-favorite tree.

“You know…”

Jack’s torn on whether to turn back towards her. She sounds like she’s smiling again. _So then, yes._ He doesn’t.

“I think we could test that part.”

Ok, that earns a turn. “Yeah?” He voices for everyone else present.

“Yeah…Yes, I can’t seem to run the inner ring off the secondary power system, but I think I could get a chevron out of one of the backup capacitors.” She’s got four human tails as she jogs back to the DHD.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m making up the electronics of the DHD out of whole cloth, but if you accept them, Sam’s stuff is mostly only normal crazy. (In fact, I’d argue it’s marginally less nonsensical than some of the canon.)


	3. But It Moves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eppur si muove._

The captain kneels back into the now Carter-shaped imprint in the dirt, and stops. Jack has to bring a hand down on Lou’s shoulder to shut the younger man’s mouth. _Give her a minute, Lou._

“Sorry.” Sam offers as she massages a welt on her leg. _You better hope you don’t need to sprint anywhere._ “This is a little dangerous.” She forestalls her CO’s eyebrow jump. “Not really. I mean, if I do it wrong.” Again. “—Which I won’t. Just a second.”

“Take your time, Captain.” He assures a little too firmly. _Dangerous how?_ Jack works out the psychological trade-offs of such a test as he waits to weigh the scientific ones she’ll give him.

 

Sam looks up to her senior officers four minutes later, fingers now a little redder from all the wire twisting. “Si…?” _His name’s ‘Jack’._

Jack ignores her slip genially. “How safe are we, Captain?” He’s legitimately excited, which surprises him a little. Psychologically, they all need this. _If it works._ If not, he wonders if he can ferment those plums.

Sam nods. “It’s very safe. This is much lower current than the main system. It won’t get us home, but it’ll test the locking protocol timing almost exactly.” She gives it once last unnecessary once-over. “It’s a good test.” She confirms with some extra mustered confidence.

Jack feels the grins behind him almost as strongly as he sees the one in front. “Well then, have at it.”

Sam takes a steadying breath and gestures to her CO’s wrist. He holds his watch for her without further clarification and starts the stopwatch function on her nod.

The captain immediately moves a mid-sized wheel half a turn. It’s riddled with wire and metal scraps, messy but somehow organized. Two scraps contact crystals, and one starts to glow with increasing intensity. Her eyes jump between the watch screen and the crystal, and Jack considers whether she’s trying to do too much of this herself. _Ask later._ She turns the wheel again slightly and starts quickly spinning another, the only one they’d built a crank on.

The Gate ring _moves_.

And stops.

“Darn.” _Your AC frequency is off._ “Hold on.” Sam struggles for the axle for a second before the colonel reaches down to help. She’s grateful; everyone else seems to be afraid to touch anything.

Which, on second thought, is probably good. “Be careful of the H bridge.” Her advice comes out more nervous than subordinate. She nods towards the tangle of metal brushing the top and bottom of the wheel.

The colonel eases his motions, but she reads his return nod as either skeptical or longsuffering. _Ok,_ ‘ _H bridge’ is too generous a name._ She’s plugged more than a few of the miniature versions into circuits before, but building one hadn’t exactly been elegant. Of course, none of this is. She wonders again at his academic background.

 _Try ninety hertz instead._ Sam recalculates the weave as the colonel frees the wheel deftly and hands it to her. Sam starts redoing the wire-wrap as quickly as she can manage, but it’ll take a few minutes. _Guys, stop staring._

 

“Sir, maybe someone could…?” Sam gestures to the crank when she’s finally finished three minutes later.

“Name it, Captain.” _Finally._ Jack’s gotta stop staring at her hands.

 _A consistent beat._ “Was anyone a musician?” Lou perks up at this and she gives him the tempo.

Jack thinks the Gate moves a little longer this time, but the watch disagrees. Apparently so does his captain.

 

Sam massages her fingers together two hours later. She’d managed the frequency and DC offset for spinning inner ring over an hour ago, but the locking protocol is taking forever. _What are you doing wrong?_ She pries the friction drive apart slightly and rotates the driving wheel another half-degree. _Why is alien technology so freaking sensitive?_ She exhales wearily and leans forward, managing to avoid most of her bruises. “Alright.”

Lou leans forward on his good knee again, flexing his arm. Three turns per second for two hours is more exhausting than he’d expected. It’s Daniel’s turn to sleep, and Charlie doesn’t turn from his post on the edge of the clearing. Jack just nods to the captain; she’d been managing her own stopwatch since twelve tries ago. And looking at the wheels is starting to make him dizzy.

“Now.” Sam starts without fanfare and with little hope. The crystal glows, the Gate shudders to life, the ring spins. _…twenty-one, twenty-two._ She turns the driving wheel.

A chevron locks.

“Haha, yeah!” Lou manages to keep his voice down as the Gate resumes its inert mien. Charlie pumps a fist just as Daniel bolts awake next to the DHD.

Jack, for his part, is grinning like an idiot. His captain sits and leans back on her hands almost blissfully. He has the insane urge to hug her.

Daniel does.

_Lucky bastard._


	4. Believe in Me

“Sam, that was awesome!”

She sighs, closing her eyes in a way Jack knows from experience has her wondering if she’ll manage to open them. “Thanks, Daniel.”

“DanielJackson.” Teal’c’s address cuts off Jack’s own congratulations, though he’s not sure if that’s a positive or not.

“Yes?” The linguist and the alien launch into another gesticulation-heavy exchange. Jack’s captain eyes them both with interest.

“Sam,” Daniel starts, glancing between her and the Gate. “Teal’c is asking if you can’t get to the second chevron fast enough now.”

Carter’s smile fades, and Jack wishes her discomfit wouldn’t come back so quickly.

“No, sorry…That’s kind of the problem.” _One of them._

“He says please do it again.”

Jack gives her the nod she requests. She resets the stopwatch.

“Uh, and Major,” Daniel continues to Charlie, “he’s asking for your help for a moment.” The alien general has walked towards the Gate with an expression even Daniel can’t classify, but it has them all a little more excited.

Charlie jogs over to the Gate and mirrors Teal’c’s pose, hands poised on the outer ring over a lower chevron. _What’re we doing?_ He doubts the answer would be comprehensible to him even if he were awake.

Sam waits until Daniel’s positioned halfway between the two groups, close enough to hear anyone over the rumble of the Gate. Her CO offers the final nod.

_Close Loop Four, charge Capacitor G._ It’s rote by now. She lets the seconds tick by to when the glow intensity starts to make her uncomfortable. … _twenty-one, twenty-two._ She hasn’t assumed it has independent overvoltage protection. _Open Four, close Two, start AC inversion._ Lou starts cranking automatically as she holds the charging wheel in Two.

The inner ring lurches into motion.

Teal’c grabs it and _pulls_ , actually lifting his huge form off the ground.

Sam freezes for a split second. _You couldn’t have told me you were going to do that?!_ Her CO quickly scuffs his boot against hers. She starts the locking sequence immediately. _Discharge the damn crystal!_ They manage two consecutive chevrons before the green glow gives out.

“Holy Hannah.” She sighs, relieved.

“Yeah!” Charlie claps the alien general on the shoulder. It earns him an eyebrow.

“Daniel…” Sam continues. _You should’ve asked him._ Damn right she should’ve. _You could’ve just blown this whole thing._

Daniel turns to Sam quizzically. She looks alarmed.

Sam quells her frustration at the doctor. This is her fault. “Just…next time, let’s be clear on what exactly he’s going to do.” She squeezes her eyes briefly, pushing at the self-aggravation.

Jack finally gets it. “Dangerous?” He asks her gently. His captain nods a little shakily. She looks up at him, embarrassed.

“I’d forgotten you could do that.” She explains, miming the manual dial. He and Lou both nod in what they hope is understanding. “It’s…really dangerous with this.” Sam gestures to her Stone Age equipment in self-distaste.

_You mean ‘could surpass the peak inverse voltage for your pathetic Rube Goldberg and cause an explosion big enough to double the size of this clearing’._ Sam internalizes the curse at herself. She has no freaking idea what she’s doing.

_They should’ve brought an engineer._

_You are an engineer, Captain. _Her CO’s joke rings in her ear and she debates whether or not to grab onto it.

_‘I don’t care if it’s true. All I care about is whether you think it’s true.’_

Her eyes snap open to his. Yeah, she’s an engineer. 


	5. Slipping (SJ)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here be pre-ship. And a cliché premise.

“Sorry.” Daniel offers the clearly distraught officer. “I should’ve…”

“It’s my risk assessment, Daniel.” Sam bites the reply more strongly than she intends. _Deal with it._ “I’ve got this.” She smiles, hoping it convinces the men more than it does her.

Jack’s command sense is way overclocked. The younger generation is still professional—he honestly doubts either’s mad at the other—but the fraying is starting again. _There’s no time for this._ He really doesn’t want to know how dangerous this was. _She’s not thinking straight. Get her out._ “Captain, take a break.” She looks to him, embarrassed and misreading his assessment as an insult or a dismissal. “Just…hit the showers.” _You’re not thinking straight enough either._

The captain blinks again, and Jack can actually see the moment she locks her exhausted eyes into pure subordination. She doesn’t want to fight anymore, doesn’t want to judge herself. He’s going to tell her what to do, and she’s going to do it. It’s a level of trust he hadn’t realized he’d yet garnered. It’s nice, too, but it puts the additional burden on him. Keep her intellect alive under the obedience. Her eyes are literally shaking with exhaustion. _Yeah, this’ll be easy._ No sweat.

The captain rises with a silent and tired nod, and he immediately regrets what he has to do next. He follows her.

She stops awkwardly at the edge of the Gate clearing, and he doesn’t wait for her question. “Someone needs to…not watch your back, Captain. It doesn’t have to be me.” Though she’s probably going to pick Daniel, and then he’ll have to decide if it’s worth explaining that the untrained civilian isn’t a suitable lookout out here. Particularly not for the one person keeping the wheels on this operation. They haven’t had problems yet, but it still only takes one.

 _This is such a bad idea._ It is. Sam’s heart is closer to her throat than she’ll admit. After Chulak, after the Gulf, she really doesn’t need a guy watching her back in this condition. _Suck it up, Airman._

Jack manages not to blink as she meets his eyes steadily, convincing herself. Evidently it doesn’t grant her access to words though, so he just accepts her nod.

 

 _That’s no excuse._ Yes, she knows. An alien and a civilian almost blowing up her rig is no excuse even for anger, much less failure. _It’s not their fault._ She knows that, too, though it’d be nice if she could get a minute to wash her bruises without berating herself over it. She struggles out of her shirt awkwardly and hears the snap of her bra, immediately wincing as the dried blood holding it on tears away from her skin. The whips hadn’t been kind to either surface. Both garments fall onto the grassy bank. Sam closes her eyes against her better judgment. _You gonna open those again?_

She finally runs a self-inventory, also against her better judgment. _You’re a mess, Captain._ …It’s a short assessment. The welts on her back and limbs are bad even without the sunburn blisters and bug stings. She wonders why the colonel hasn’t commented on them. _No, you don’t._ Ok, she doesn’t actually wonder, but she wishes she did. He does seem different. _He’s cute._ She almost bites her own tongue. _Shut. Up._ All she needs after this Charlie Foxtrot is to start more rumors like that. Of course, they’re probably already there.

 _Concentrate!_ She shakes her head dizzily and sits on a stone to scrub her t-shirt. It rips. _Great._ Well, she’s wearing that backwards now.

 _Captain-Doctor Carter._ She shakes her head at herself again and tries to refocus on the DHD. She’s never, literally never, had a problem focusing like this before. _You’ve also never been quite this FUBAR’d before._ She sighs and stretches her neck, working pathetically few of the kinks out of her burnt and bruised joints.

 _Three minutes._ She glances at the watch the colonel had let her keep. She’d scavenged from two of the others. _Twenty-three hours and twelve minutes._ She could take a three minute break. Maybe the colonel would let her sleep if she managed to actually do something without risking an explosion. _Three minutes._

Her eyes settle on the flowing current. It’s rushing over her legs in what may well be the best sensation she’s ever felt, given her current crispiness. _You look like a roasted lobster._ In a floppy hat. _Where’s your hat?_ They’d helped even Daniel more than her, another curse of the blonde. They’re goofy hats, though. Maybe one of these plants acts like sunscreen. The plums Teal’c found have been great. _Nice to have a food tester on board?_ And the water’s beautiful, really. Peaceful and beautiful under the glow of the alien moons. She blinks again into the glittering eddies.

 

Jack grimaces. He’d really been hoping she’d pick someone else to not watch her. _No, you weren’t._ Well, he wasn’t, but only because his guys are tricky. He knows they’d never consider doing anything invasive, but they’re serious teases when they’re wound up like this. And they’d want to chill her out. _They’d know better._ …Probably. This captain isn’t exactly initiated to their tradition. _And Lou’s kind of a gossip._ Jack lets his eyes roll along their surveillance of the forest’s edge.

But now said captain hasn’t moved in a solid ten minutes. He’s not worried exactly, but he resists to urge to turn. He could just snap her out of it, or wake her up, depending, but he doesn’t really want to without knowing what’s up. Self-deprecation, momentary mental escape, problem solving. He’d take either of the last two, but she’s got a thing for the former. He sighs and hits his staff weapon on the branch above him. _Don’t look at her._

 

Sam bolts awake and gropes for her staff. It’s missing. _No!! Where?_ She reaches blindly for a second before her bare foot hits it. “Sir!” She hisses simultaneously. _Don’t say ‘Sir’._ She doesn’t care as she bolts slipperily to her feet. _You’re naked. Great, call him when you’re naked why don’t you?_ That won’t start any trouble. _What was that sound?_ “Uh…” Her eyes keep darting for it, though she’s still not quite steady in her crouch.

 

 _Whoops._ Jack winces at the sounds of her scramble. _You’re lucky she didn’t fall, idiot._ “It’s alright, Captain.” He tries calmly, not facing her.

Sam finds her CO’s back and blushes over all her exposed skin. _Stop thinking._

“Think you just dozed off there for a minute.” _Gee, Jack, wonder why?_ “Head back to camp and you can get some real sleep.”

Sam controls her breathing. “Sorry.” _Sir._ “I’m sorry.”

“Quite alright.”

She glances down at her still dirt-encrusted clothes. “Um,” _Great job, Captain. We’re just rolling in time here anyway._ “Yes, just a...”

“Take your time, Captain.” _Sam._ “You’re doing great.” _Did you have to say that here? _“Good…building stuff.”

Sam gulps. He really is…nice to her. It’s odd. The realization dawns. _Oh, please don’t make that the reason you’re actually a considerate human being._ She shakes the thought. Of course not. He’s clearly not attracted, and he’s almost certainly married. _Because he’s a catch._

_Shut. Up._

She starts ignoring herself pretty successfully. That was highly inappropriate thought, and it’s not going to continue. _What the hell’s going on with you?_ She yawns painfully, skin burning.

 

“Captain?”

 _Do’h._ _Teach him to say something nice to you._ “Uh, yes, thank you. Thank you, S…” _Do’h._ “Just a minute.”

She sits and stares pointedly at the water. But she does feel more awake, and the ‘shower’ and laundry go quickly despite the pain. Her hair is a lost cause of matted dirt and lingering blood, which means her fingernails stay the same way. The water-smoothed rocks massage her broken skin; they couldn’t spare bandages for most of them. She finishes hurriedly despite the pleasantly cool-but-not-cold water.

Sam lets herself wince as she slips back into the same battle-worn woodland BDU trousers. Now to put that t-shirt on and walk back out there. She fingers the remnants of her bra. _Right. Great._ The Jaffa have good aim with whips, even the ones that hadn’t had it as she slipped the ambush long enough to bury some gear. Especially them. _Wait, did Teal’c let you do that?_ She tries to recall the night, and then tries not to.

“Captain?” Jack tries. She’d paused again. _You’re kind of an ass._ He is. She’s doing all the work, and he’s just tossing that word at her every time she breathes too deeply. _That’s your job._ Yeah, well there’s that. And he does it, rather well despite the rustiness. Doesn’t mean he likes that part. “You decent?”

Sam shakes herself again and pulls the wet t-shirt over her head unceremoniously. “Yes, S…” She glances down and folds her arms. “As much as possible.” She murmurs quietly, turning to him. He doesn’t turn.

Jack doesn’t have to guess what her addendum means. He’s had women in the field before. Not many, but enough. _None like her._ He yanks off his own mostly clean t-shirt and tosses it lightly backwards. It hits the ground. He probably should’ve handed it to her, but that wasn’t happening.

Sam blinks at her CO’s bare back. _Stop staring you idiot._ She climbs off the bank and slips on her boots to pad gratefully to the t-shirt. “Thank you, S…” _Stop calling him ‘Sir’. _ This’s gotta be the slowest adaptation she’s ever not made. _Apparently you want him shot by snipers._ By entirely non-existent snipers, but whatever. He’s in charge. _Maybe he wants to keep you around for another mission._

 _Don’t get ahead of yourself. And why is your mind wandering so much?_ She wonders how long he’ll let her sleep, but doesn’t plan to object to it regardless. _You’re lucky he’s making the hard decisions._


	6. Burdens of Proof

“You good?” Jack prods, turning hesitantly. His t-shirt is now hanging down over the captain’s fully trousered legs as she faces away from him. She reaches down quickly and ties each boot one-handed. They were all really going to miss fresh socks by the end of this, but then again they already miss DEET, sunscreen, underwear, soap, and toilet paper, so why not.

“Yes, thank you.” Sam nods with one last look at the stream. Her trousers are drying quickly and it’s still rather warm out. The current’s fighting itself a little, swirling around the water-worn rocks.

 

She’d gotten a little reinvigorated, and embarrassed, at the stream, but the promise of sleep has Sam almost asleep by the time she sits down by Charlie’s dozing form. She blinks with her head on the ground and doesn’t wonder how it got there.

 

_Let him help you._ She wakes up to the thought groggily, noting Daniel’s eyes on her.

“Sorry, Jack said to wake you.”

Sam blinks at her wrist and realizes she should’ve offered the watch back before someone had to take it off her. The thought makes her a little uncomfortable. She nods to the still-waiting doctor and sits up.

“Breakfast.” Her guardian colonel gestures nearby with a flourish of an alien plum.

_Did you really sleep until breakfast?! _They’re going to be stuck here for the rest of their _lives_. Sam quickly stumbles to the campfire. “God, I’m sorry, I—”

Jack stops her. “Captain, _I_ am your alarm clock.” He gestures to the watch on his wrist. _Come on, Captain, this is the part where you trust me._

Sam blinks around her hastily bitten breakfast. _What happened to ‘won’t object regardless’?_ “Right, thanks, S…” She’s well aware she’s dripping yellow plum juice everywhere, but she needs to move fast. She has to start doing… something. _Something._ The discouragement of last night catches up to her and runs her over like a Humvee. _Crap._ She’s never really been an experimentalist. She manages it, but she’s a manager: all the fine tuning crap does nothing with her impatience and her speed demon-ship. She typically has to save her patience for more animate and brass-toting beings anyway. _You’ll figure it out._ Sam rips the last bite of her meat off the bone and swallows her apprehension. Her legs are sore but don’t hurt quite so badly as she stands and wipes her hands on her BDUs. _You’re still wearing his t-shirt._

_D’oh._ Sam spots her own beside the fire. It’s dry. _Surprise; you’ve been asleep for hours._ She forces the berating to stop as she grabs it and stiffly jogs a few yards into the woods. Every footfall is jarringly painful.

Jack watches her go, emotions undecided. _She’s going to be a trouble case._ A perfectionist, quibbler, and a stickler when she remembers to be. It’s not his favorite combination. _Plus, now you’ve gotta put that shirt back on._ And he’s definitely not thinking about that.

Sam pulls her own t-shirt on backwards and lets herself wince as the fraying and stiff fabric scratches over her welts. And sunburn blisters. And bug stings. She exhales and tries to focus on the jury-rigging at hand.

_…You’re bored._ It’s a revelation, not because spending two hours turning wheels by half-degrees is boring, but because she rarely acknowledges it unless there’s an alternative.

Sam shakes the thought. _You need to get them off this damned planet._

_What if this isn’t the way?_

She’s faced plenty of fork-in-the-road science, but none with _quite_ this pressure. _That’s what training’s for._ _Do what you always do._ Trust it. She glances at her wrist but sees only her watch tan. _Oh, yeah._ She manages another quick jog back to the clearing. _You’re wasting time._ “Uh…Sss?” Which is apparently her new abbreviation for ‘Sir’. _He’s going to think you’re nuts._ But the colonel shows up next to her anyway. “Can I see the time?”

Jack does her one better, taking the watch back off and handing it to her. _Whatchya doing, Captain?_

“Thanks. I just need a minute.” Sam takes it and turns from him more distractedly than she intends. “Three minutes.” She kneels where she stands and starts scratching at the dirt anything that comes to mind.

_Current, back emf,_ she scribbles Loop Two, _overvoltage, manual spinning, PMDCs,_ her fingers sketch out a DC motor system, _eddy currents, superposition, fight itself, glow intensity, lumens, clipping circuits …glittering eddies, DC offset, signal-to-noise ratio, band-pass filter …reverse current, let him help you, antiphase …noise cancelation. Noise cancelation._

Her head jerks up, seeing through the DHD’s black casing to the now well-memorized crystals inside. _Noise cancelation._

_This is going to be dangerous._

Sam blows through her three minute time hack, but she’s got most of the framework and risk points worked out in under ten.

Her head rises wearily back to her current jury-rig. It’d probably work. Eventually. It might even work soon enough. And it might not.

 

“Captain?” Jack’s not sure she realizes how white her knuckles are, but she’s probably going to cramp from the way she’s fisting her left hand. Her right’s done an impressive job with the brainstorming. Jack’s met too many scientists that don’t know how to deal with that mid-project, much less mid-galaxy. Her eyes jump to him. “Idea?” He asks lightly.

Sam answers directly. “Yes.” _Sir._ “But it’s dangerous.” He nods, and she feeds him the rest of the risk assessment. “Time consuming. I’ll need to dismantle a lot of this. And we might only get one shot.”

“But?” _I trust you, Carter._ He’s surprised just how much. _It’s been a trying few days._

She manages to hold her CO’s eyes. “But it might be our only shot.”

Jack should pry more. Make her think about all the bottlenecks, all the failure modes he won’t understand. But looking at her like this, he knows she already has. _She’s quick._ Like him. More like him than he’d ever expected. _She has gut feelings._ And he’s going to have to trust them. She _needs_ him to trust them. “Do it.” So that he can share the burden if they’re wrong.

“Si…?”

“That’s an order, Captain.” The confirmation doesn’t waver. It’s a tactic he suspects she’s picked up by now, if she didn’t know it coming in, but neither begrudges the other for it. It’s a big burden, keeping a too-young doctor from his wife and a too-young major from his family. He wants to share it with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am, unsurprisingly, not an electrical engineer. If you are an electrical engineer, please slap me in the comments as necessary, and I will try to manage my undergraduate EE knowledge better.


	7. Twice

Lou wakes up to an odd crack. The ensuing English curse allays his ‘fight’ reflex, but he sits bolt upright anyway, taking in the scene.

His knee hurts.

Not a bullet, probably just a PCL sprain.

He’s burnt to a crisp.

Also, you know that scene every parent has seen a zillion times in _Tarzan_? Trashin’ the Camp? Yeah, that. Someone let four gorillas and a goofy elephant lose in here.

“Uh, Jack?”

The CO turns backwards from their campfire. “She’s working on it, Lou.”

“Did I miss the buffalo stampede?” There’s also that sad scene in _Lion King_.

Jack meets the young major’s eyes firmly. “We’re changing strategies.”

Lou gulps. “I see. Recreating the opening storm from _Wizard of Oz_? Will that work in reverse?” Ok, maybe he’s just back in ‘Jack’s your CO’ mode. It’s amazing how in sync you get in just a half-dozen Charlie Foxtrots as many years ago.

Lou grins, but the colonel’s eyes don’t flicker. _Damnit. He’s serious._ “Whadaya need?” The major finishes more seriously.

Lou’s colonel turns back to their engineer, who seems to be mostly working in reverse at the moment. Now something in his eyes does flicker.

Jack nudges a few of the football containers simmering in their fire pit. He’s not worried about her progress. Only a little. He grabs a ball and dumps cooler water over it to make it drinkable. “Let’s see how she’s doing.”

 

“Captain.”

“Good afternoon, Gentlemen.”

Jack nods to her back. His captain is legitimately amiable, if a little lost. “Close enough.”

Sam glances up at the joke in her CO’s voice. And blinks at the red sun hanging high behind him. “Oh, sorry. Good morning.”

He smirks. “Been a long two hours there, captain?”

_Is it really only two hours?_ “Um, yes. I guess that’s good though, right?”

The smile doesn’t leave Jack’s face. It’s been getting more typical lately. His captain zones back into her doohickey. He claps; she jumps. “Whadaya need, maestro?”

Sam glances up at him, err, both of them. _He’s bored._ …They’re bored. It’s a frustrating thing to have around, but she knows how to fix it. “We’re going to do this as a manual dial with the friction drive’s locking protocol. That means I need to cancel out the lower-frequency EMF noise generated by the manual turning so that the locking waveforms still manifest correctly in the main control array and the amplitudes don’t get too high in places where I’ve had to bypass the voltage buffers.”

Sam lets her far-off gaze drift to the open control array, watching both men in their reflections on the crystals. She abridges the details—it’s a fine line between ‘scared off’ and ‘pissed off’ with a lot of these guys.

“I don’t see another way, since I have to bypass the DHD’s high-pass filter branch to splice the locking protocol in, and we need a better signal-to-noise ratio even ignoring the danger of overvoltage. I’m bypassing several of the main buffers, so the canceling amplitudes will have to be very tightly regulated. It’s kind of nice though, actually, the way this is set up.”

Sam gestures to the innards of the DHD: _orange-orange, orange-green speckles, orange-blue speckles, green-orange, green-green…_ “It has its own internal rating system; I’ve figured out almost everything’s relative impedance, maximum forward and reverse current, and capacitance without actually knowing a single thing directly in SI units. It’s made conversion from what I know at home trial and error, but it’s amazingly self-consistent. The system’s even reflected within the layout and coloring scheme of the device itself. It’s…beautiful.”

Jack’s pretty proud of his ability not to scratch his head at that.

“Really amazingly intuitive. Whoever did this, they wanted it understood. Even splicing the locking protocol makes sense.” Sam taps the friction drive absent-mindedly. Her thoughts have been more crystals than English, lately. “We’ll also need to change the DC offset for it again; that’ll be experimental. I think I can pinpoint it via a similar locking test to before, though, which is good, because the final version may well explode within two minutes.”

_Well bury that lead, why don’t you._

“—Which is enough time, of course. I can cut the dialing down to forty like this, so even with another eighty to confirm the Iris and get through… We’ll need to be ready, though. You should decide whether we want to jump planets, actually.”

_Did she just give you an order?_

_Nice._

“The trick is going to be identifying the noise well enough to manage a good signal-to-noise ratio. I’m guessing we’ll need to cut the SNR by at least third, so there’s a lot of testing to do with the G capacitors. I’ve had to dismantle that original loop—most of the original loops—in order to protect as much as possible during testing. I understand it well enough now, though: reconstruction should go as fast as we can twist the wires. Testing will take the longest, but it’s not complicated.”

There’re some who’d debate that statement.

Sam’s gaze drifts back through the crystal inventory to her left. “The O-B crystals are like op amps; they can work as voltage clippers. So, if we run the G crystals in series with them, I think the Gs should act like LEDs. We’ll be able to see and record the frequency patterns at various voltage ranges based on the respective crystal glows. Then it’s sort of some Fourier series work; I’ll go through the superposition geometry and distill it down to a few waves that we can generate in the inverse phase. The Gate’s been pretty tolerant of low-amplitude and high-frequency noise so far, so that should be fine. …We might need more wheels.” _But everything else has been singular or dual._ “I doubt it, though. Seeing the sort of frequencies the DHD deals in, I suspect there’s a set of band-pass filters in the Gate itself, in addition to those I’ll use.”

Sam looks down. Her fingers have already twisted together the Manual Gate versions of Loops Two and Four, so she moves onto rigging together the orange-blue and green crystals. _This is actually really cool_. She still can’t believe that she spent the better part of her adult life working out things that, with the help of a few dozen alien parts, she can now patch together in a matter of days. Well, until it explodes. _You need to meet whoever made this thing._

 

Lou watches his CO watching their captain. It’s a little funny. Jack’s probably thinking of something profound; he usually is, but he just looks kinda dopey. _Charlie’s right._ Of course, Charlie’s always right about Jack’s love interests, but this… _You are so, so, so out of your league, boss._ Of course, that’s how so many good relationships are. _Lucy’s so far away from your league she might as well be …on Earth._ He can’t stop some of the pain at that, despite the optimism his CO requires.

Jack decides he’s just going to wait here. _Stare at her_. Certainly not. His eyes flit over the crystals she’s laid out. _So, we’re going to listen to the noise the Gate makes, and then make the opposite._ Why can’t scientists just say that? _Because that was hot. She’s… gorgeous._

_Enough._ _So what if she is?_ It’s none of his business. She must have a boyfriend. _Because she’s a catch. …Yeah, she’s also your subordinate. _He can almost hear himself belting that in his ear as he turns away.

“Oh, Sir.”

_Damnit, Captain._

“Err, I mean, Si… There you are.” _Well, that was respectful._ Sam shakes her head awkwardly where it’s still half-buried in her orange-blue crystal rig. “I needed to tell you, this should work, but it’s only going to give us about two minutes total. I think I can buy you eighty seconds of that with the wormhole fully stable.”

Lou smirks. Jack manages to as well. “You told me that, Captain.” Jack hadn’t expected to be the better listener in that monologue.

Sam blinks into the crystal she’s examining. “I did” she tries her best to swallow the question mark.

“Just now.”

“Ah.” _Huh._ “So, we have over fourteen hours left; I think I can finish this completely in under ten. I’d like to know whether you want to—”

“Leave the planet.” Jack supplies. _Jeez, she really was out of it._ He’d almost thought she was playing them at the beginning. “Yes, Captain. I’ll tell you.”

She finally turns to him. He forestalls her follow-up question.

“Soon. I’ll talk to Teal’c.”

His captain’s nod is just barely on this side of ‘distracted’, but she mostly keeps looking towards him as she speaks. “Also, I’ll need all hands when the testing is done if we want to go quickly. Maybe an hour in eight hours or so. I’ll be ready to test in about thirty minutes, which’ll take Major Ferretti and I guess Daniel. Teal’c offered to turn the Gate alone.”

His captain stop there, half-gauging his reaction. _Well, she’s back in charge of her ‘lab’._ Jack wonders if she’s noticed her increased command confidence, but he’s not about to point it out.Instead, he weighs his options. It’s rough on Teal’c, but they’re short-staffed if he and Charlie are getting wheels they probably won’t need. And they’re getting wheels.

“Captain.” He waits for her to turn back to him. His tone catches her quickly, so he has her eyes back in a few seconds. “That’s not a problem.” She puts her nod in before the obvious ‘but’. “But next time, tell me who you need _before_ I have to plan the schedule.”

The embarrassment passes on and off of her face faster than he’s yet seen it.

_Crap. …He’s not mad at you._ That last part’s rather odd. “Understood.” _Sir._

Jack nods. Lesson learned, no fuss. Just the way he likes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ok, this is electronically ridiculous. (Theoretically possible and not particularly difficult to try, but ridiculous.) But in my defense, “theoretically possible but ridiculous” is basically Carter’s mojo. I hope no one got to scared or pissed off at the monologue.


	8. Rings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little heavier than usual. It felt like Sam and Jack needed a ‘storming’ phase.

“So, Major, please watch this crystal and, Daniel, watch this one. Work out the pattern you’re seeing.” Sam turns to her own. “Major, turning the AC converter should be easier now.” She shows Ferretti the new slower speed, thanks to Major Kawalsky’s additional friction drive. It’d been low on her priority list, but she’s incredibly glad he did it. He is, too. “Can you write music?” She asks afterwards.

“I can write Byzantine canticles.” Daniel says, sketching in the dirt.

“Not by transcribing.” Lou answers. _You do realize your life depends on this, right?_ Great.

“Ok, just write or remember it however you can.” Sam’s gaze is already gone, tracing back through the circuit one last time.

“Ok.” Daniel nods to himself rhythmically. “You ready for Teal’c?”

“I’ll sound off as soon as I close the loop that lets the ring turn. Then he should just dial Earth as quickly but consistently as he can. The chevrons won't lock.” Daniel nods and turns to the alien general. “And, Daniel,” Sam restarts. _Protect your team._ “Just…make sure he’s doing ok. This will take a while.”

Lou nods internally.

“Sure. It’s hot out here.” Daniel agrees. Sam waits another few moments as Daniel addresses Teal’c. They’re all in the sun under variously useful hats, but Teal’c has stayed hatless and has all the manual labor to do. _You remember how hard it was to turn Earth’s inner ring by hand?_

“Indeed.”

“ ‘Indeed’?” Lou echoes the alien general’s odd affirmation.

Daniel shrugs. “He likes it better than ‘Yes’. He likes it better than most words, actually.”

 

Jack automatically steps his way through the forest on solid rocks and non-crunchy roots. It does feel sort of like the Little Carpathians. _Don’t jinx it._ Charlie’s behaving himself as well as Jack is; they’ve been moving with strict noise discipline for forty-five minutes. Which is good, because Jack’s sick of the psychological crap. He’s halted them a few times, but never more than the thirty second cutoff. There are fewer deer out here, but more rodents, which means more snakes. They’re careful.

_You should’ve apologized._

Jack glares too hard at the next clearing.

_She was trying to reassure you._

And she shouldn’t have been. Leaving the captain alone with Lou’s knee isn’t something Jack wants because he _knows_ the risks. Reassuring words don’t change risks. _The sand scalds your ear as both knees crack at the impact._ Risks are real, and he’s made his career on managing them. _Run! MOVE!!_ Only fools ignore them. _‘Haha.’ His ring knocks against the desk. ‘Your scenario is highly unlikely, O’Neill. The tactical headquarters is well defended.’_

Jack bites his cheek and pulls at the blood. They’re still a klick from the town. He lets himself glance into the sky towards the Gate. No warning shots. _They’ll be fine._

_Yeah, now who’s not supposed to be reassuring?_

It’s not that he’s worried about Lou’s capabilities. Captain Carter’s the problem, despite her other skillsets. Which she has, undoubtedly; their discussion of the shopping list had been excellent. _You like working with her_. Maybe. If so, it’s dangerous. He needs distance from people like her.

No, Lou’s more than capable alone. His humor is just a good façade over his skills, both of which Jack had briefly helped the younger man hone. _Only he’s still genuine. He’s actually an open husband. And father._

_What went wrong with you?_ The blood tastes bitter.

Yes, Lou’s a downright a dragon when he needs to be, the castle-guarding kind. But Jack’s at the next step: what do they do about his knee if he uses it up? He needs to preserve him. A lot can go to shit in thirteen hours. _Lucky thirteen._

 

Sam agrees to a break when Daniel’s reported pattern changes for the third time. The other frequencies are getting clearer, but she’s not sure if the issue is Daniel or the crystal. It’s been a long two hours. And it’s _sweltering_ out. She’s amazed the forest survives, because she’s not sure she will.

All three men move out of the sun fast enough to almost double Sam’s guilt at keeping them there. Daniel’s dumping fresh stream water on his now-bare chest, and Lou is trying to check his bandages. She manages a half-smile. They’re great guys. And Teal’c’s devouring another steak that puts his total at probably half their deer, not that he hasn't more than earned it.. She painstakingly retraces the circuit, focusing on Daniel’s branch.

_You are an idiot._ Sam quickly adjusts the reference voltage in Daniel’s low clipper. It doesn't ruin everything, but explains those stupid blips they get occasionally. She leans on her staff and gets up to check the camp’s perimeter. She’s been walking it every ten minutes like clockwork. Major Ferretti does too, though slower and less often. Teal’c doesn’t, but then he’s manually turned the Gate sixteen times now. _He’s more exhausted than he lets on._

_‘Zoomie, let’s not pretend you have any idea what you’re doing._ ’ Sam bites her lip on the memory and picks her way back into the forest. The colonel hadn’t exactly hidden his displeasure at her staying alone with Ferretti’s knee. _I told you not to get ahead of yourself. He doesn’t like Academy grads._ It stings, and it doesn’t make sense. She’s a freaking captain; who outside the Beltway even cares where she commissioned? She sighs quietly and stuffs it in the ‘ways COs get irrationally cruel’ closet. It’s a big closet.

Her course around their defenses is practiced, carefully rechecking the traps, tripwires, and everything else the professionals did. And they are that; they’re experts, and this isn’t yet her profession. _But that has nothing to do with USAFA._ More to do with her gender. Her eyes flit over another hidden C4 explosive with somewhat-practiced nonchalance. Nothing looks tampered or easily visible.

Her feet still crunch occasionally as she walks, though. Noise discipline is exhausting even in daylight when every muscle hurts so badly. It makes her a little dizzy. The hundred-yard circumference feels longer than it is.

_When will they be back?_ It should be soon, and the double-duty is exhausting. She’d reassured the colonel—humiliatingly, in the end—but his paranoid ‘shopping trip’ still feels misplaced.

_Stop second-guessing him._

Sam squints past the dizziness and deeper into the trees. There’s a deer carcass back there. _What killed it?_ There’s no vulture yet. That’s odd. _It’s recent?_ She clutches her staff, well aware that she isn’t spotting a quarter of what the majors or colonel would see there. Or Teal’c, come to think of it. She’s almost done; she’ll point the carcass out to Major Ferretti.

Yes, the colonel’s insult stung, but she’s used to it. She’s put in a lot of time in woods like these since being tapped for Gate travel, and it’s not like she’d be out here without it. _Are you really worse than he expected?_ She finds that hard to believe. It’s not like you’re supposed to jump from a lab, or the Pentagon, or even her aircrew duty in the Gulf to _this_. _Maybe if you’d had more than a day’s notice._

Maybe she’s just needs to get used to her CO knowing more than she does. It’s a little weird, to be honest. _These guys are way out of your league._ She’s in the middle of a special ops unit. So she’ll do what they say, even if they’re disdainful of her over it.

But ‘shopping’ still seems like a stupid thing to call it out here.

 

Lou pulls another few plums off the tree by the Gate and pours their filtered and boiled stream water over them. They’re excellent, despite the burping. Carter’s about to take too long on her perimeter sweep. He’s been running his own every half-hour, but it doesn’t hurt to let her try as well. _Unless, you know, it does._ He strains his ears towards sounds of distress. He needn’t; she’s still a pretty loud walker—if quieter than any rookie or desk jockey he’s camped with—and she’s headed back towards him.

He turns as she comes back into the clearing, staying in the shade.

“There’s a dead deer eighty yards out at nine o’clock. Not sure what killed it.”

Lou nods. “Probably that bobcat.” Her look of surprise doesn’t surprise him. It’s a sneaky fellow, but he’s giving them a wide berth. Lou glances meaningfully to the unlit torches staged in their kitchen before realizing that probably wouldn’t translate to ‘science geek’. “He doesn’t like fire.”

_Ok, maybe less than a quarter of what they see._ Sam nods a silent acknowledgement and wishes again for access to their training. Major Ferretti walks past her to put down the plums, so she sucks up a last second of shade and heads back to the DHD. Twelve hours left to cut across the galaxy. _  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I elected to not actually show the 'insult' scene. Do you miss it? I feel like we get more out of their dissections than from the also seeing the it ‘live’, but intra-team conflict is a new one for me.
> 
> Also, to be clear, this has nothing to do with USAFA. If Sam was a Bulldog, the guy would've been from there. You really can't tell alma mater usually, which is why Jack's problem is based on the one guy. (I know Jack's supposedly an Academy grad, but I have too many other interesting things to do with him to follow that.)


	9. Trust

Sam sits back in front of the DHD and scrubs a hand through her hair. Tries to, anyway. It’s too tangled, but it itches terribly. They’re probably picking up all kinds of bugs and parasites here, if the state of their latrines is any indication. She glances at Teal’c and Daniel as Major Ferretti starts along their perimeter. _He doesn’t trust you much either, does he?_ Daniel’s picking at his food. He doesn’t seem to eat much when it gets this hot; she should keep an eye on him. Teal’c is sitting cross-legged. Meditating? They need a longer break than she can give them, unless Major Ferretti orders it. No, he probably doesn’t trust her much at all, with all this.

And it’s about time she did something about it.

 

“Captain.” Lou mouths to the young woman as she approaches him. It’s silent and comes with a cursory head tilt but no eye contact. _She should be resting._ His gaze dances deftly into the forest.

“S…” Sam stops. “Major.” _Why can’t I say ‘colonel’ when they all call me ‘captain’?_ It’s not like the bobcats speak English anyway. _They’re testing you._ She’s probably not doing very well.

“Name’s Lou, Sam.” Lou says quietly. “Whadaya need?”

 _You should’ve asked first._ “Sorry.” But she looks at him candidly.“I was just wondering if I could” _get better enough to be trustworthy._ “…watch someone do this who knows what they’re doing.”

Lou grins as he eyes the deer carcass. The vultures have showed up. _So she’s a learner._ Lou likes learners. Too many of the people he’s taught over the years haven’t had that particular interest. “Sure.”

 

Sam heads back to the DHD from her patrolling lesson ten minutes later. _He’s a good teacher._ And thorough, if necessarily quick. She hefts her staff weapon, amazed how much clearer her head is after just a little while not weaving its way around alien electrical circuits. So she sets back to that weaving. Well, actually she sets back to altering her sketches in the scalding hot dirt, but either way. She’s nominally in the shadow of the DHD, but the heat waves coming off the black surface keep her away from it.

“Sam.”

Her eyes rise back to ‘Lou’. “Yes, Lou?”

“Need anything?”

 _More time. More people._ _Less heat._ “I think we should get started again soon. But I’m worried about Teal’c.”

Lou nods. “Me, too. He’s doing a heck of a job with this.” He looks at the blighted Gate. “You know who else I’m worried about, Sam?”

She glances back to him distractedly, surprised her gaze hasn’t stayed on the superior officer. _You should shorten the voltage range for Daniel’s branch. Come back to the rest of it later._

Lou just chuckles as he lowers himself to the ground and hands Sam her food.

She takes it with attempted concentration. _Cut it by a third, from the top. That lower adjustment should fix everything else._ Sam reaches for the first orange crystal and realizes she has a plum in her hand.

“Captain.”

Her eyes jump to the voice, which is strong if genial. _The major’s been talking to you._ “I…Sorry” She shakes her head to dispel the science and bites the plum instead. _You’re losing it._ She’s tired. And a little dizzy. “Sorry, what was that?” She adjusts her hat and resists the incorrect urge to massage her reddened neck.

Lou meets her eyes again, and she sees the Major Ferretti that’d taught her how to spot alien bobcat spoor.

Lou looks at the young woman genuinely. “You’re doing well out here, Captain. I know you must be dead on your feet.” He certainly is. It’s going to take his knee a minute to forgive him for that patrolling lesson. “And this is a lot of responsibility. But you need to eat.”

Sam blushes under her hat and blistering skin. “Yes, Si…” _Sir._ “I’m sorry, I knew you were, I just—”

“Forgot.” He supplies as lightly as he cares to. He’d seen her checking them. She feels that responsibility well, even though it’s his first. But he’s had enough of officers that make the mistake of skipping self-attention. _They can the better ones. Eventually._ _Jack’s certainly got his work cut out for him if he sticks around._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the military team development is getting a little long. The muse in the crow's nest spies pre-ship on the horizon.
> 
> Patrolling: I know about as much here as Sam would've pre-Gate, and I medicaled out of training before most of the interesting stuff. I'm open to experiences to fill in the 'lesson'.


	10. Burnt (SJ)

“Alright, Lou, I think yours is done.” Sam nods again with her eyes locked on the frequency plots sketched in the dirt. She’d explained the mistake she’d made with Daniel’s crystal—well, _that_ she’d made a mistake with Daniel’s crystal. But even now it’s the trouble one; Lou’s and her results are really very consistent.

“Back to the grind.” The major half-jokes, starting to rise.

She stops him. “Uh. Actually, maybe you and Daniel could switch.” Sam manages to keep most of her awkwardness disguised under her now post-lobster sunburn. She thinks.

“Don’t trust me?” Daniel asks, also only half-joking.

“I’m just that good, Danny.” Lou ribs back.

“Guys!” _…Whoops._ “Uh.” _Damnit, Sam._ “Sorry. Just…”

Daniel shakes it off. “It’s ok, Sam. I’m not sure I’m doing this right either.” He offers her an almost miraculously genial smile for as weary as they all are. She returns it, thankful for the respite from what probably would’ve been another rather long self-berating session. _Your temper’s too high. Cool off. _Daniel just stands with a smile and heads to their ‘kitchen’. Teal’c’s out of water again.

“Major, I’m—”

“Apology accepted.” Lou inserts just as sincerely if not quite as amiably as Daniel. “Let’s do this thing, shall we?”

Sam nods slightly. The movement’s been growing smaller as the skin on the back of her neck fries ever more. _That and it’s making you dizzy._

 

“You really are good at this.” Sam offers the major an hour later. Not only had he confirmed all their results, he’d directly spotted where the loose connection was in her circuit. _Your eyes are going, Sam._ She might never fly again with slips like that. _Alternatively, it’s been under one of the half-dozen black spots in your vision for three hours._ She polishes off another water football and flexes the cramp in her arm.

 _That’s everything._ She confirms after her third ‘final check’ of the time traces and frequency spectrums. “That’s all, Lou.” She repeats with an unexpected breathlessness.

“Woohoo.” Lou offers her quietly but genuinely. His eyes find Daniel’s along the perimeter, who passes on the dismissal in Ancient Egyptian or whatever they’ve been speaking. _He’s getting better out here._ At least, he’s not quite the walking Charlie Foxtrot that is most of civilians Lou’s trained.

Teal’c is sitting down cross-legged and visibly exhausted almost immediately. Visible exhaustion hasn’t been Teal’c’s MO, and seeing it does nothing to curb Lou’s sorrow at the ringer they just put him through. _Who could turn that thing by hand over twenty times?_ It might be more actually; things started to blur together towards the end. Lou finishes another football and reveals in the shade of his perimeter check, moving only as quickly as his knee and crutch want him to. It’s really not that bad, but he knows there’s no need to stress it if he can avoid it.  _Where’re Jack and Charlie?_ Sam must’ve given them a heck of a list. He hopes nothings wrong. _  
_

Fifteen minutes later, Sam’s glad the senior officers went to get more wheels. Not because she needs them for the noise cancelation, but because the AC inverter finally gave up the ghost. Blinking at the broken crank and splintered spokes, she tries to remember what frequency she’s been using. _Eighty hertz._ She nods and starts to salvage what she can of the wire. _Good thing the colonel walked you through that shopping list so carefully._ She’d never seen him so diligent and thought-provoking about anything. And then insulting. _It’s not eighty hertz._

She shakes the dirty and sunburnt cobwebs from her aching mind and pivots around on bruised knees. _Where did you write that?_ _Why are you so disorganized all of a sudden? You’re lucky it hasn’t rained. Don’t jinx it. There! Ninety._

Sam shakes her head again and then immediately jumps to her crouched feet. _What was that noise?_ She pushes off her staff weapon and dives for the side of the DHD away from the unidentified sound. Her staff weapon primes to shoot just as Daniel goes prone in their campsite. _Where’s his weapon?_

“Captain.” Jack speaks from the edge of the clearing using the loudest voice he’s used in days. _Situational awareness is getting better._  Sort of. Appropriate reactions are certainly getting worse. He picks up the huge wheel Charlie plopped down.

Sam’s eyes squint at the two ranking officers and then snap closed almost immediately. That jump and dive made her far dizzier than she’d been expecting. “Sir.” She mouths without vocalizing. It shouldn’t count if you don’t vocalize. _Damn, you are really dizzy._ She tries to shake her head as the ground collides with her. Her hands catch the fall and she feels her bloody fingernails break in the dirt as she scrapes for a football canteen. It’s hot to the touch, but she upends it above her mouth anyway. It shakes violently, but it’s empty. _You knew that._

Something taps her on the shoulder. This one’s not so hot to the touch as she spills part of its contents on her face and neck. The sun’s setting rapidly as her CO and his 2IC set their supplies down beside her. “Thank you.” She says but doesn’t hear the sound. _Why’s there no sound?_ She looks at her mouth in confusion. _You what?_

“Brought presents.” Jack says, nodding Charlie off. _She’s slurring her speech._ “Looks like you need them.”

“Thank y” _Who?_ The football splashes onto her lap.

_She’s going into shock._

 

“Captain.”

She shudders a little but doesn’t stir from lying under his favorite tree.

“Captain.” Jack parts her mouth slightly and squeezes more plum juice on her tongue. _She really needs an IV._ His other hand floats back to her now-dampened jugular.

 

“Captain.” She’s still too warm reclining beside him, but the current tugging gently at their bare calves is definitely helping. He keeps his hand around her damped torso and shakes her gently. _She’s going to bolt on you._ He’s still not sure if that’s training or experience. _Or abuse_. But he suspects he’s about to find out. “Captain.”

She stiffens weakly in his arm and he catches her head before it falls from his chest. Jack worries his jaw again. He thinks they’ve dodged the hypoglycemia, if that was it, but she at least has heat exhaustion. _Why do you have no uncrushed medical supplies on this damned planet?_

 _Ouch. Where are you?_ _It’s hot. It’s too hot._ Sam struggles to move from the heat source. It’s everywhere, but concentrated on her right side. It doesn’t move. _You’re not moving! _ She tosses all her energy at the leverage point below her hip and bolts away from the restraint.

 _Crap._ Jack blinks the water out of his eyes and pushes off the shallow bank to grab his now-sputtering captain. _Apparently you’re not doing so hot yourself, Colonel._ She seizes onto him immediately, pulling with desperate and unfocused eyes. His arms shake as Jack loses his footing and throws their weight on his staff. “I got ya.” He mutters to the ripped cloth on her right shoulder blade as his own muscles scream over him. He stays like that for a beat until she blinks the desperation from her eyes. Then she almost helps them get back to the shaded bank and manages to not quite collapse backwards.

 _What the hell was that, Sam?_ But the grass feels really good under her head and her entire body doesn’t suck quite so much as it has for _…days?_ _Forever?_ Especially her shoulder.

She glances at it. The hand on it. “Sir!” But it comes out as a cough, so that’s probably allowed. _What’s he doing here? Where’s here?_

“It’s alright, Carter. Just breathe.” _She’s alright, Jack._ The captain’s eyes light a little in his gaze.

“What happened?”

“You passed out.” Jack gives her calmly in the most anti-judgmental voice he can find.

She just follows his order for a moment. _Just a moment._

_Great going, Captain. _It was just her unconscious, apparently. _Neither of the guys that’re actually injured that’ve been with you all day. _She blinks, looking for her CO’s eyes. _He thinks you’re pathetic._ To be fair, she is. _You’ve been staring at the sky for at least a minute. And it’s not like we have a lot of those left floating around._ She can’t find his eyes, but he hands her a slightly wet hunk of meat. It shakes in her hand. It takes her a second to make it hold still.  _So much for proving yourself to these snake eaters._

 _You shouldn’t have surprised her._ Jack scolds himself again as he takes his first breath in twenty minutes. So, he’d just wanted unload their heavy, and apparently noisy, gear. He hadn’t expected her to freak out. But he’d seen how she’d felt after the ex-rabbit incident. _And that was yesterday. _They’re a mess. How had she even noticed anything? _You’re underestimating her._ _And you’re losing your own edge. Way more than you’d thought._ Jack runs a hand through his wet hair and scolds himself again …and then again when he finds his other hand moving on her shoulder. _She’s awake, you idiot._ Not that it wouldn’t be stupid either way. He drops his hand as nonchalantly as he can feign and feels the sunburn flake on his arm. _You’re too old for this shit._ He stares into the alien stream. Green and gold fish dart happily around his ankles. _And you are way too damn old for this rookie._

Jack lets himself spot her with the farthest edge of his peripheral vision. She’s zoned out again, but not in the way she was. _She’s thinking again. Already._ He should be impressed, but he’s a little nervous. She is finally picking slowly at her meal, though. _Despite being cooked to well done._ _Her and the deer._ He lets her lay there in silence.


	11. Rock Candy (SJ)

_How hard do you push her?_ It’s the question of his mission, and he hasn’t been doing a very good job answering it. _You had one job. And now it’s lying here recovering from shock and heat stroke. You better hope she doesn’t have permeant brain damage. _He doesn’t want to wonder about how bad that’d be for Earth, not even considering their broken own DHD.

Nine hours and thirty-seven minutes.

 _You’d already be that village’s new permanent residents if she weren’t here._ Don’t remind him. _And Lou said she’d been doing fantastic._ Which is not a word the goofy-but-tough major often uses with would-be students, particularly not an hour before they pass out. _Don’t let Lou blame himself for this._ No, that’s clearly Jack’s job.

He thinks it over one last time before going with his gut. _Do you still trust that thing?_ Not really. _You really ought to be retired._

“Carter?”

 _Don’t screw this up again, Sam._ “Yes, Sir?” _That went well._ “I mean,” _Seriously, ‘Sir’?_

“Relax.” Jack manages not to rub her shoulder again. “How ya feeling?”

“I’m fine.” _Sir._

He sighs. _Captain, under what circumstances would you expect me to ask that question when the answer should be ‘fine’?_ “Need anything?”

Sam swallows through her headache. _No, Sir. Thank you, Sir. I’m ready to go, Sir. Open your damn mouth, woman._ “Ink.” _Huh?_

“Ink?” _You couldn’t have told me that before we went to town?_ Not that he’d seen any non-evaporated liquid in town. _She was just unconscious, Jack._

She nods more confidently, hair sticking in the shaded grass. “I’ve been thinking about when we dial back to Earth.” _When._ “I’ll be last out, and Lou, too.” _That’s going to go over well._ “I think…I mean, it won’t, but it’s possible that something might… go wrong.” _Blow up_.

Jack hadn’t intended to frown at his injured charge, but she should know better, even like this. “Captain, when we go, we go together.”

She’d seen that coming, at least. “With all due respect,” she closes her eyes for a second to let her head unheat. “I… getting one person through is worth something.” _Clarify. …Huh? Oh._ “In this case.”

 _Ink_. “You’re sending them with instructions.” Jack confirms.

“Yes.” _Sir._ “It’s complicated and it’s going to have to be fast. It might not work, but it’s better than nothing. And it’s not something I’d like to waste time explaining in the minute or so we’ll have.”

Jack nods to her relative forethought within half an hour of regaining consciousness. If he’s honest, she’s really catching _a lot_ more on her own than most of his rookies. _Hah. You’ve had rookies miss their second try because their heads are still lost in paper bags._ “Ink, then.” _And preferably paper._ Though he suspects she’s about to tattoo all of them. _Stop thinking about it._ He’s getting sick of himself. “Anything else?”

Sam runs back through her mental lists. “No,” _Sir,_ “thank you.” _See there, that wasn’t that hard._ She’s starting to feel human again. At least as much as she has been.

Jack nods and moves on to his own questions. He’ll address how she prioritizes issues in that massive brain when they’re back on Earthly ground. It’s not like there’d been ink in town.

“Um.” Sam starts again, hoping he’ll let her. _He’s going to be pissed. …When has that been true? With him?_ It’s a good point.

“Yes?”

The response is so pleasant that Sam almost feels it tickle her ear. _Sheesh, calm down._ She tries to smile and prop herself up on her elbows. The latter works. “I just…” _Please understand._ “I know what you said before about believing it.” He nods. She gulps and pushes her eyes from the stream and to his own. “I don’t want to seem like I’m leading anyone on. The DHD…I understand its functionality, I think, somewhat, but…”

“But the concept of using whatever’s available in an abandoned Iron Age village to trick an alien device into thinking it still functions enough to transport us across the galaxy is basically batshit?”

Sam blinks. That was a long sentence for him. “Yes.” She finally manages. She would nod, but she’s still a little gun shy of the dizziness.

“I know, Sam.”

Sam blinks again at the use of her first name. “I just don’t want people to get their hopes up. Everyone…”

“I do.”

She squirms slightly despite herself. _Why?_

“Sam, _I_ know what you’re doing. They might,” he’s not sure about Daniel, “But pessimism is a dangerous precedent out here.” Just ask Jack’s carefully cultivated sense of humor. “Lou and Charlie know that. If it doesn’t work, I’ll handle it.”

Carter holds his eyes for longer than he thought she could manage in her condition.

 _Believe him. Believe him. He’s not going to dump this on you. He really won’t. _He’s looking at her patiently. Steadfastly. She finally nods weakly, pulling herself to a sitting position.

“And, Captain.”

Sam freezes before realizing she needn’t.

“From now on, if it doesn’t look like rock candy, it’s not your problem.” _Just let me help you._

Her brow furrows enough to make him smile.

“Rock candy?” She asks quietly. And then, _Oh_. _Crystals._ “Yes.” _Sir._

He lets himself help her to her feet.


	12. Science!

“Captain.” Jack approaches her forty minutes later when she looks more human.

Sam starts to stand for her CO and then tries to remember why it feels like she hasn’t lately. “Good morning.” _Sir._

_Yeah, she’s back._ Jack holds up his hand to forestall her rise. “Good afternoon,” he answers nonchalantly. She absorbs the correction without comment. “Captain, please don’t stand unless it’s mission-critical.” He’s half expecting a flash of embarrassment under her hat, but she absorbs that in her kneel as well.

Jack kneels beside her. Part of him had been wishing for rain due to the heat, but seeing the manifesto she’s penned in the dirt up close, he switches that off immediately. They’d be screwed. _You need a fallback._ “Ink.” He says simply, holding up a crushed fruit thing. He doesn’t particularly want it all over their skin, but Teal’c approved so they’re going with it.

“Thank you.” She answers, eyes on him. “Could I finish this first?”

She gestures to… something. Jack nods. “Just a couple questions.” Her eyes come back to him. He studies them for a second as he tables his concern for her. “Captain, what exactly does ‘go wrong’ mean?”

She doesn’t need clarification on the dialing-out scenario, and manages not even to hesitate. “Blow up.”

_Points for directness, Captain._ “What, exactly?”

“The DHD, I think.” Sam clamps down on a yawn and immediately stops scratching the bug bite on her blistered elbow. “I don’t know how big, though.”

Jack nods, suddenly feeling itchier himself. “Ok. And we’re not leaving early. Teal’c doesn’t have any place for us to go with a guaranteed DHD and no one shooting at us.”

Her brow furrows. “Where are the refugees?”

_Told ya she’s too smart._ Jack considers giving her a solid ‘none of your business, Captain’ look to save her the sadness, but then discards it. She’s more than earned disclosure. “Labor camp.” He answers evenly.

“ _Labor_ camp?!”

He nods. “It’s a long story. Daniel tells it better.” It still basically sucks, though.

“Sir,”

“Captain.” Now he does give her a similar look, but with a different sentiment. “It’s not rock candy. We’ll handle it when we get back.”

She exhales and nods without dispelling the water carefully guarded in her eyes.

_She’s sensitive under all this._ That’s… he decides not to think about what that is. Jack also can’t quite meet those expressive eyes as he rises stiffly. “Charlie.” The major turns to his CO without actually hearing the quiet call. It’s not that they’re whispering, but they’re voices haven’t left the clearing the entire time they’ve been here. “Grab a shovel.” Jack finishes when his 2IC’s close enough. Not that they have shovels, per say.

“Where’s the hole?” Charlie’s eyes are already on the branches around them. _‘Shovel’, Jack?_ They’re like beech trees for cryin’ out loud.

“We’re trenching. And containing the DHD.” Jack’s eyes are going too, and he hasn’t quite found a way to make this funny. He’s not thinking about her eyes.

“Uh,” Sam interrupts, still at loss for a cogent interruption that doesn’t start or end with ‘Sir’. The colonel turns. “It’s possible the Gate might fall.”

Jack can accept this without comment. “You want it to fall backwards?” His captain nods fully with very little dizziness in her eyes. He’s glad for that at least. “Will do.”

 

It’s working.

Well, kind of. The trench is working great, and Lou seems to be having a little too much fun lying in it after he practices jumping from the AC inverter. _Stop screwing with your knee._ Jack swears, it’s like every officer he gets is five years old or something. Where do they even get that? He scratches at the soil now coating his …everything and wishes Charlie would hurry up at the stream.

The campsite looks a little like they just lost a battle with giant termites, but Charlie and Jack managed to dig both the DHD trench and the ditch under the Gate in three hours. Both have passed the stranded crew’s limited combat engineering insight and Daniel’s archeological architecture muster. It turns out plasma blasts dig cool trenches.

“What could possibly be doing that?” Daniel’s huddled beside Captain Carter as they stare at the science-hieroglyphics sketched in the dirt. Or whatever they are. She’s got them up to test dialing three chevrons at a time now.

“I don’t know.”

“Why would Three work in testing One through Three and Two through Four, but not testing Three through Five?”

“I don’t _know_.” The captain supplies again. They’ve been trading roles as aggravated question-asker for ten minutes, and Jack’s about ready to put them both in timeout.

He sighs and walks over.

“Does it matter? We’re not going to start at Chevron Three anyway.” Carter voices, reading Jack’s mind.

“I don’t _know_.”

Annnd there they go again. Scientists.


	13. Devils over Details

“Alright, campers. Time to change gears.” _Time to stop chasing your tails._

“But we only have five hours left.” _Sir!_

“Technically it’s closer to six hours, Captain.” If the DHD’s gonna blow within two minutes, he sees no reason to make them earlier than necessary. Especially if they blow up with it.

Sam shakes her head. _You should’ve told him._ “I’d like to do it earlier. If something goes wrong, we could use the hour to fix things.” Sam sees the grimace almost before it hits her CO’s face. _He has things to plan here too, you know._ Well, she assumes so based on his work so far. And the grimace.

 _Always_ _ask what the geeks are doing._ Jack kicks himself. _There goes that hour._ “Right. Then all the more important that we do this now.”

“ ‘This’?” Daniel prods, wiping his nose. How can it be this dusty in a forest? He’d just lived in a _desert_.

Jack hands him the GDO more carefully than is strictly necessary. “Practice that. With both hands.”

“I know the code.”

“Know it faster. Get it to two seconds, finish another three canteens, eat, sleep.” He should be nicer about it, but Daniel will understand. Jack’s well out of time and patience for couching the details. _Yes, Jack, piss them all off and then get stuck together forever._ And he’s usually so good at running from issues.

 _Well, he’s getting snippy._ Daniel forestalls his urge to argue about military versus civilian relationships. He stands up and heads to the shade just in time to greet Lou and Charlie. The latter man is sopping wet, which is a marked improvement from the plasma-burned dirt he’d been coated with.

Jack forestalls Charlie’s nod and waves both men to sleep. Lou doesn’t object. It’s technically his shift, but he’s got the more precise DHD job. Plus, they all know it’s not so always the marathon up _to_ zero hour that dooms you, but getting through it only to have to sprint again.

 _You need to sleep, too._ Not really. Jack’s slept as much as he absolutely needs, which is more than he’d like. _And more than Rwanda._ And slightly more than his captain’s had, lately.

Jack adjusts his hat and plants a branch in the dirt mound beside the DHD. It’s not much shade, but he’s been trying everything. Carter’s well on her way to serious sun poisoning with infections in some welts. And she’s still refusing pain meds. _‘I think my head’s foggy enough already’ Sir._ He reads her well enough now that they both add the ‘Sir’ mentally. Still, she’d shifted from whatever hieroglyphics she and Daniel had been yelling at on her own, so Jack’s lets her work for the moment. They’re running out of time. _Four hours, twelve minutes._

 

 _Up the mid-frequency phase shift another half-degree._ Sam turns the wheel, but the G crystal crackles at her new test. _Freaking overvoltage!_

Jack’s captain shoots a look at the DHD that appears to be the Carter equivalent of beating it with a stick. At least that’s his best Carter-to-O’Neill translation. “Captain.”

Sam shoots a glare at the distraction before realizing who it is. “Yes?”

 _‘Sir.’_ See? They can both think the honorific. Waste of brainpower, if you ask him. “Everything alright?”

“Yes.”

 _‘Sir.’_ “Good. We should go over the rest of the details.” He’s been saving it until she needed the distraction. Although he’s still concerned about any more ‘oh, you can’t have that hour’ surprises. It’s a delicate balance.

And Jack’s not exactly a delicate guy. _You were supposed to pick your own team._ One that knew how to _speak_ to each other. Of course, they wouldn’t know what to say without her, but it would’ve been nice. _Nice to not spend the rest of your life with her in a scenic forest?_ _Shut up._ “How many people can turn the Gate at once?”

“Just Teal’c.” Sam answers; she’d been waiting for that. Although she’d forgotten she had been.

Jack’s gaze drifts to their alien savior. He’d ‘let’ the general sleep three hours ago. It’d turned out to be some ‘kel-nor-something that’s far less important right now than Daniel gives it credit for.

Sam talks because no one else is. Her ears buzz when it’s quiet. “The OB crystal sequences are too sensitive at…” _Oh, who cares? _“Any faster and I won’t be able to compensate.” Sam’s eyes drift closed. It feels _amazing._ Her CO backs a hand against her forehead. She doesn’t move. Yes, she’s probably running a fever.

 _She didn’t tell you her fever rose._ Damnit. Well, there’s one surprise. The antibiotics are working better on Daniel’s. “So Teal’c turns the Gate, Charlie backs him up. Lou and I are here with you, Daniel’s on the outside of the trenches.” _To send the distress code before he also blows up_.

Her CO is pointing vaguely, but Sam’s not really following his gestures. _How does this matter if I can’t actually make it work?_

“Teal’c falls back to carry Lou, Charlie takes Daniel as he radios, I take you.”

“Si—” The glare Sam gets is unlike anything her CO has yet shot at her. She nods briskly. It’s not quite the infamous ‘you’re clueless’ insult look, but it’s close.

Jack regrets the glare immediately, but he’s not backing out of it. There’s no way he’s risking leaving her here. “Charlie’s on radio.” _And he better be speed-practicing that ‘don’t shoot the Jaffa’ message in his sleep._ Jack glances at his dozing 2IC. He actually is.

“That puts Teal’c and Lou on the right, Charlie left, and us center. We should all dive through.” It’s quicker, and doesn’t touch the metal, what with all the sparks she’s been making. He won’t mention that part.

Sam looks at her CO distractedly. She’s grateful no one’s demanded eye contact, but she wishes they wouldn’t talk to her at all while she’s working. _You should recheck all the wheels._ She’s tabled the Chevron Three issue for now. Maybe the change of topic will help eventually. Or maybe they’ll just ignore it. _Ignore it? Are you sure you’re still a scientist?_ She stifles another yawn.

“We’ll need to practice the jump. And we need the tattoos. And the radio.”

“Radio?” Sam hears as she rechecks the rotational velocities in the dirt.

“Yes.” Jack actually takes the ‘pencil’ stick out of her hand. Her mouth snaps closed on an objection that most definitely would’ve ended with ‘Sir’. He should probably ease up on the no ‘Sir’ requirement; it clearly hasn’t relaxed her. _Does anything relax her?_ … _Sex probably would. Yeah, or not being stuck in the middle of nowhere with you. Jackass._ He’d been doing so well there for a while. Back when he used to sleep for entire hours.

_She’s staring at you._

Actually, she’s staring at her pencil. _What were you asking?_ “Can you fix the radio, Captain?”

Sam blinks and nods. _Oh, yeah. That._

Jack hauls her to her feet carefully but rather unceremoniously, though the way she’s leaning on him means he’s probably forgiven.

He lowers her to a log in their shaded kitchen, guiding more of her weight than either will admit. She leans painfully back against the wood and takes the radio and football canteen he hands her. He’s basically been force-feeding the captain sugar water. She is _not_ going into shock again. He hopes.

Jack stifles another yawn and sits down across from her. He hates the sun. Too bad zero hour is only just after dusk. Actually, it’s just _at_ dusk if they’re going at the beginning of it. _How did you not ask her about—? _ He doesn’t finish the thought; it’s a waste of time. He needs to figure out exactly when they’ll start their first dial during the hour they have. Hopefully the answer won’t have him pondering the difference between 0:59:59 and 01:00:01 for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any scientific mistakes by characters: Sam's knowledge base on electronic jury-rigging, Daniel's on Iron Age towns, and Jack's on field medicine all stop where mine do. I assure you this is entirely a coincidence.
> 
> …Mistakes may disappear when identified, though.


	14. Short (SJ)

_Best case dialing time is down to thirty seconds, plus or minus six._ Jack blinks the dust from his eyes and glowers at the dirt. Do you have any idea how hard it is to read without ink? He hadn’t. No wonder hers and Daniel’s eyes are so damn tired. … _to 99.7% confidence._ He’d bitten the bullet and shown his ‘I’m not actually an idiot’ cards enough to confirm that ninety-nine seven is three sigma. He knows, of course, his entire life is risk assessment and problem formulation, but—therefore—he’s not about to risk their way home on him screwing up a probability density function.

She’d put the still-open radio down then. He hadn’t stopped her.

 _Alright, six seconds at three sigma._ He checks the math again. Adjust to six sigma, tack a safety factor of five onto what little they know about watches-through-Stargates effects. Which, based on his subordinate officer actually ignoring the question with her head in the DHD, is just calibrated from the changes he recorded himself during the first Abydos mission. He doubles it to account for both their watch and Warren’s, and works forward from the exact time hack the major gave before retaking Chulak’s Gate.

Then he rounds up.

Twenty seconds. Start dialing twenty seconds _before_ zero hour. Plus a prayer that nothing decisive happens at 01:00:01. He hates rounding up. Also down.

_Weren’t you retired?_

Yes, just recently. Damn.

Charlie opens one eyelid next to him. “Stop complaining.”

The major’s been drifting in and out of dozing lately. They pretend it’s not because he’s checking on Jack. “Run your radio message again.” The colonel glances at the abandoned, partially reassembled device. His 2IC rattles off the message. It’s quick, but clear. And he’s just as willing to recite as he has been the last twenty-seven times. Charlie knows about time, too. _They smear the blood hurriedly, hoping not to get too much kerosene in self-inflicted wounds._

His major’s eyes are closed again before Jack steps into the shade of the DHD.

“Carter.”

Sam almost chokes on her curse at the Gate. _And this’ll never work. What’s so bad about this planet anyway? It’s nice. Hot. Seems more genial than some other places._

 _…What about Liz?_ Lou’s daughter. _Think about Lou’s daughter._

Yes, his captain definitely needs another change of pace. Apparently egghead herding is Jack’s new specialty. “Radio.” He says too loudly. The scientist almost bumps her head against a crystal. He’s not sure which would’ve won, her skull or the rock. Still, they both trudge back to the kitchen. Jack can’t manage to look much more optimistic than she does.

 

“Darnit!”

 _Oh the fuck, why can’t you just curse like a normal human being?_ She’s quiet about it, but Jack’s about to wake Charlie up again because staying alone with Carter is starting to drive him nuts. He’s reinforced the trenches, refilled the water, picked more plums, and gotten his GDO dialing and radio message down to one and four seconds, respectively. And she’s still cradling the radio. Apparently he shouldn’t have expected her to switch back to the DHD automatically. _Tunnel vision, Jack._

“Grrr…”

 _Did she just growl?_ Jack gives up on his perimeter sweep and heads for the kitchen. If something wants to eat them all now, let it. He should’ve let a warning shot scorch that damn bobcat.

“Carter?” Her eyes are wet. _Oh shit, her eyes are wet._

“Sorry…I. God, I.” _I cannot believe I just fucking did that._ “I shorted the…” Sam gestures to the radio.

The smell registers with him much later than it should have. Yeah, she shorted something alright. _Three hours and seventeen minutes._ Maybe he’s been ordering her wrong. _Yeah, and maybe you’re going to spend the rest of your life wondering that._ She’d never forgive him. Jack sits down next to her, right next to her, and hands her another football. She has one; this is more of a peace offering. You learn to bury emotions quickly in his business, even anger. “Ok.”

“Okay?” Sam asks, incredulous enough that Major Kawalsky twitches slightly in his sleep.

“It’s ok.” Jack repeats, half for Carter and half for his partially-alert 2IC. “What else can we do?”

“You don’t have to forgive me.” Sam sets the second football canteen down shakily.

 _Concentrate, Captain._ “It’s not about forgiveness, Carter, it’s about practicality.” He offers this candidly rather than correctively. “What else can we do?”

“I…God, I don’t _know_. I destroyed the polarizing voltage for the preamp of the microphone.”

 _Don’t get snippy._ “Ok, so…?” Jack cracks the seal on his ‘extra nice to scientists’ reserves just in time.

Sam has the sudden urge to slap something. _Why is he sitting so close to you?_ “I don’t _know_.” _Cool off , damnit._ “Sir,” but she’s going to say that word anyway. “The truth is, I have no idea. I’ve never worked with these before; I hadn’t even _used_ this advanced model.” She cradles her head and doesn’t bother to care that she’s not looking at her CO. “I don’t think I’ve opened a radio in ten years.”

Jack nods. This’d still work; they’ll just go through first and make sure no one shoots Teal’c. And hopefully Hammond would open the Iris without hearing their voices after four days. Yeah, hopefully. _Help her, you idiot._ “Is the Gate going to work?”

“It’s a giant alien magic carpet that I tied some rotten Stone Age wheels to.” _Did you just say that out loud?_ She just said that out loud. _Oh boy._

Jack chuckles. “So, yes.”

Sam snorts despite herself. She should probably say something nice, but she doesn’t move.

Jack opens his mouth again, trying to keep her awake. “So, you do your snazzy spinning thing,” or possibly to make her smile, “Lou does his, Teal’c does his. Swoosh, GDO, Charlie falls back to Daniel” while radioing, maybe, “They go keep anyone from shooting Teal’c” or they crash into the Iris, “we do the same, they jump through. Hit the sky.” He flourishes to where the blue horizon _will_ appear in three hours.

Sam’s kind of listening. “We’re last.” _You’re last, Sam._ She doesn’t bother with the correction. “I need to keep adjusting for the fluctuating event horizon. The feedback loop’s damaged in its third quintile.” _Or something like that._

“Okay.” It’s two fewer people to say ‘don’t shoot the Jaffa’, but whatever works. Jack lets her sit there and sip at the football. Another minute could… doom them. Or save them, if it calmed her down. He tries to think for himself.

 

“Aren’t speakers like microphones?”

Sam blinks. _Who said that?_ “Um, yes.”

Jack nods. “So…”

“So… honestly, I have no idea how to do that.” _They’re acoustic transducers._ “Well, I mean, I know how to do that; I don’t know how to do… this.” She gestures to the radio in her lap.

 _Right, because you had so little notice for this mission that your engineer doesn’t even know your gear._ If that kills Teal’c, Jack’s going to personally tear the door off the Oval Office. “How long would it take to try?” He asks, upbeat.

Sam sighs. “Couple minutes. But I doubt it’d sound like anything. We can’t test it. The polarizing voltage…” _You have no idea what you’re talking about. _What she wouldn’t give for some good ancient alien color-codes.

“And the Gate?” Jack hadn’t expected her to start working. Actually, he’s not quite sure _she_ knows her hands are working.

“I think that’s all we can do. I mean, there are so many things that don’t make any sense. So many quirks, like…” Sam decides she doesn’t actually want to talk about it. “I really have no idea what’s going to happen. It _seems_ elegant and straightforward. I might be projecting.”

“You’re not.” He offers firmly. She turns to him, evidently surprised he’s there. “Because I don’t want you to be.” To her credit, his captain nods.

“There are so many unexplained issues, like this Chevron Three problem. I have no idea what that is.”

His captain wants a ‘but’ there. “But?”

Sam keeps her eyes locked on the radio. “But I don’t care.”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up before he can grab them.

“It’s not that I don’t care about _this_.” Sam clarifies, about getting home. She thinks. _Lou’s daughter._ “I just don’t think _that_ matters. Which is odd, for me.” To think science doesn’t matter. She chokes down a yawn.

Jack smirks, transitioning to the conclusion. “So, it’s done.” Carter only misses one beat before nodding. “And the radio’s almost done.” Another nod. “Any problem if it rains?” They’re finally getting a few clouds in the long day’s sky, but she shakes her head. “Good. Ink, and then sleep.”

Sam blinks at the last word. _Sleep._ Sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left, I promise. Apparently I like this story far too much.


	15. Like Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost standalone 52nd hour of the "52nd Hour".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mabfeath: This is 7,000 words and all but 7 are entirely your fault. :P Anyone not looking for another 7K commitment is welcome to read my original, insufficiently awesome version of this chapter, ‘In the end, it wasn’t so hard.’ Consider that a choose-your-own ending, since I blew threw my word count so thoroughly.

**Wound**

In the end, he’s calm. It can’t be climactic, for him. Either they go home, or they live here. He’s ready to expertly fake preparedness either way. Because that’s his job.

It’s only too stressful if you let yourself admit it.

Jack uses a little nervous energy to top up his reflexes and lets the rest skitter out through the stick he’s twirling. It’s drizzling slightly, but they’re done writing in the dirt. Their tattoo ink isn’t running. It’s just… damp.

Fifty-two minutes. Fifty-two minutes, down from fifty-two hours on this godforsaken rock.

Jack scrubs the sleep from his eyes finds their stream through the trees. Charlie’s the last to clean up. He rinses methodically, not really thinking about the dirt he’d picked up practicing the jump through the Gate.

No, Jack thinks, his 2IC’s doing what he is. Processing. The pre-processing you do so your instincts can work. Then that little tick will start in his major’s ring finger. Maybe ten minutes from now. It won’t go away until the sleep after this reckoning. Where ever that is.

Lou’s different. The younger man is on lookout for Charlie, and is nodding his dialing cadence into the trees. He’s singing a lullaby. It’s silent, but Jack knows it.

Jack doesn’t have nearly so much experience with Lou. But he knows enough. He knows that he’ll lock in so hard when the time comes that he’ll nearly explode when it’s over, no matter how it ends. He knows he’ll see openings where there aren’t any, and blow them open anyway when he finds out he’s wrong. Knows he might get angry, but he’ll never get mad. _Which is a problem._ One’s a lot harder to detect than the other.

He paces the perimeter. His instincts will take over soon, but they’re still looking for more intel. There isn’t much to find. Camp’s not broken down so much as sort of packed. His finger twitches away from the detonator for their C4 perimeter. He feels bad leaving explosives lying around the galaxy, but he’s not about to risk removing them _now._ The weapons are staged. Their fire is out. The Gate stands ready. Slipperier. Jack sorts through his sack by rote and digs out a rag for the still-meditating Teal’c. His shoulder has healed completely. Water beads on the general’s forehead, but no sweat.

Teal’c, Jack can count on. Because he knows he can.

 _You’re sweating._ The rain is warm and intensifying, but that’s not why. Jack’s lips twitch slightly as his breath carefully steadies. Raindrops wash the salt off his brow, trailing down his eyelids.

Forty-six minutes.

The clearing is getting soggy. He’s still nervous about flash floods. Daniel squishes past, muttering his radio message. He’s tapping the Morse code for H-O-L-D against the speaker-come-microphone. The tension radiates off him, swaying in the trees.

Daniel’s less predictable. He’ll see everything, remember everything. Touch something he shouldn’t. No one’s a victim to him here, so there’s nobody save with naïve heroics. _Unless Carter gets hurt._ Jack’s still not sure what’s between them. But Daniel should do as directed, if not at military speed. Carter nods as she passes him, headed for the stream. They’re both ready. Fed, hydrated, rested, trained, cross-trained, freshly bandaged, packed with supplies.

You never know when you’ll have to sprint again.

Forty-three minutes.

Jack knows himself, too. Feels himself slowly slipping beyond his eyes and out into the bigger picture. He’ll struggle to come down from that view. And if Abydos was any indication, he’ll crash headlong past the ground and into the bottom of a deep, dark glass. He doesn’t much like being in himself anymore.

 _Pull pitch, Jack._ Leave it. Take off.

Forty-two minutes.

 _Talk_ _to her._ The truth is, he’s never had a woman in a situation like this. He hopes that’s not important. He’s not sure he’s ever had someone with electric blue eyes either.

“Well, where _is_ it?”

“Probably on Chulak beside all our food and water.” Sam answers, forcing her hands to her sides.

“You left the food _and_ the ammo?” Charlie cuts in. He’s seated on the bank and glances around, mock-searching for her overspent ammo.

“I had barely a minute to fill in that hole.” Sam pulls her glare from the major’s hair. “I’m lucky this much fit. And I wasn’t going to run _back_ to the ambush without a spare M9 clip.” _Sir._ She kicks the mud of the alien stream bank. _Real mature, Sam._ She stops, not meeting either major’s eyes. _They’re right._ She didn’t bury a lot of things they need. The dirt here is clay, nothing like where she’d dug the stash on Chulak.

Charlie smirks, trying not to smack his rookie upside the head. “Run from a battle and bring back a pistol.” He jokes into the t-shirt slipping over his head.

“I’m a pistol expert.” Sam directs at the muttering. She knows the cynicism too well without the words. “The P90 is—”

“Then how’d you bring the M9 to prison?” Lou cuts the tease from his voice. _Does she ever relax?_

“They didn’t strip search me that time.” Sam’s acerbic. It’s still the only defense she’s got against a bunch of angry black ops guys. _You’re still in that damn briefing room._ Except now she knows they’re right. _And now you’ll to have plenty of time stuck here to hear about it._ She keeps glaring fierily.

Now it burns. Lou’s mouth flaps. _You’re teasing an untrained captain when you let her get stripped searched by aliens?_

“Everything alright, campers?” Jack fixes his 2IC with a look that belies the sprint he just finished. Apparently there’d been too little anger around here so far. Forty-one minutes.

“Sorry.” Charlie’s answer has more pity than he intended. It’s not directed at Jack.

Jack steps between his men and the captain. _What’d you do, Charlie?_ He nods her back to camp. She leaves, though seemingly without saving much face. Jack renews the pointed look at his men.

Charlie exhales. Lou fidgets with his loose energy. Charlie snags the rock from his hand and throws it in the stream. “I overreacted.”

Jack grimaces. He buttoning up well enough, but his 2IC is clearly unsettled. Lou is too, which is odd. He’s usually the tempering force the treatment of non-field operators. “To...” Jack prods, finally.

“We’ve got _nothing_ to survive here.” _And we let her get assaulted._ He’ll bear that one himself for now.

“And you saw fit to start a pissing match about that _now_?”

“No.”

His 2IC’s response is so flat, Jack isn’t sure he knows what it means.

“I did.”

His eyes swing to Lou in genuine surprise. It’s not like the indigenous forces trainer to lose his temper. At least not visibly.

“It wasn’t serious.” Lou adds, trying to explain it to himself as much as his CO. _You know better._ Trainees have no confidence next to them. “She’s just…” Lou stops, asking not to finish.

“Wound a little tight?” Jack offers, frustrated. _No shit, Sherlock._ He’d gotten that before ‘reproductive organs’. Lord knows what being stranded here, with them, after Chulak, forty minutes from zero hour is doing. _Thanks for kicking over that rat’s nest, kids._

Charlie drops a heavy hand onto Lou’s shoulder. “Our bad.” You think he’d’ve learned not to piss off the engineer. “I’ll go…” Charlie gestures after her. He sighs. The strip search this had caught him hard, but he’s been laying low since the briefing for a reason. In addition to avoiding a buddy’s crush. Damn difficult attitude. Let him deal with that thing long term.

“No.” Jack sighs, eyes back on their environment. They’d just let their guard down for too long. He sees them catch it, too, turning slightly. “I’ll do it.”

“What should I say?” His 2IC asks without looking.

“What should I do.”

Charlie blinks at his CO’s back until the statement registers.

 

“Sam!” Daniel almost smiles, mostly in nervousness. _You’ll get back. You’ll find her._ “…What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” _Very convincing._

Daniel doesn’t let Sam by. “Ok…” _Translation: change subject._ “I was thinking about the oppidum. Do you see why it’s abandoned?”

“You’re the archeologist, Doctor.” _No, still not nice enough._

Daniel’s head shakes excitedly. “No. You see, I didn’t get much time there, but there don’t seem to be any signs of cultural redirection. It must be climatological. Or maybe geographical?”

“Daniel, you’re the only one here with three PhDs, ok?” Sam breathes. “I’m not a climatologist, or a geologist. I’m sorry.” _Or much else._

“Maybe we could, I mean when we’re back—”

 _Back?_ “Doctor! What does this even matter?” She pulls around him, bee-lining for the DHD.

Daniel closes his mouth wearily.

 

Daniel catches Jack with the most pointed looked they’ve ever exchanged as he walks past the campfire. Great. _What’re you gonna do that the anthropologist couldn’t?_

Carter’s sitting by the DHD, her face in the shadows of the setting sun. Back straight, eyes ten degrees above the horizon. The captain’s got fake confidence down to a T. Unfortunately, there’s no actual T in confidence. He’d learned that one the hard way, too.

“Hey.” He slides down next to her. _Wound tight._

“Good evening.”

Jack exhales at the official greeting. “They didn’t mean that.”

“It’s true.” _Sir._ Sam wills her voice steady.

 _Yes, but,_ “It was insulting.” And the literal antithesis of well-timed, give or take half an hour.

Sam unlocks her gaze and offers it to him. She owes him that, and she’s never been one to run from negativity. “I’m pretty good with insults.” _Sir._ “I’m just sorry they’re right.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Not real helpful, but it’s the best he can offer.

There’s no answer to that besides a rote ‘Yes, Sir’. Sam turns back to the DHD, letting it absorb her. _Green one to green-blue, red three wired to yellow four, green two charges red-orange…_

Jack watches her eyes fall. She’s thinking through the DHD. Any other time he’d be reluctant to interrupt. _Any other time besides thirty minutes to zero hour?_ But the spark is missing. The one she usually gets looking at it. _She’s hiding._ “What’re you actually worried about?”

 _Blue seven to red-green six, purple one to blue nine._ “Nothing.” _Sir. Liar. Blue nine to red-yellow five…_

Jack sighs. _Just do it._ He pulls her to her feet and across to the far side of camp. He’s manhandling her the way he would anyone else, which is a mistake on several levels. _A mistake Charlie just made._ He stops, turning to her in the relative privacy of ten yards further away from everyone. “You can tell me, Carter.”

Sam shakes her head at the change in orientation. It’s all colors. Crystals, wires. Her fever won’t break and the pain won’t stop. _Yeah, and you’re pissing the hell out of everyone._ It’ll be better when she’s moving. Things fall into place when she’s at speed, they always do. _Just apologize._

“Carter.” Jack breaks into her gaze meaningfully. “ _I_ lie to them, Captain. Not the other way around.”

“I can only get six.” Sam kicks herself immediately. Six chevrons? _You’re telling him that_?

 _Six?!_ Great. That’s… his captain of course knows exactly how useful that is. _As evidenced by the immediately and forceful flinching._ “Ok.” She peeks at him with a sort of blank surprise. “Any better ideas?”

 _Don’t get stranded on the far side of the galaxy._ “No. I’m…” _You’re about three seconds from banging your head into that tree, is what you are._

“Then don’t let it eat you up.”

The captain again blinks at him blankly. Jack gets the feeling eating herself up is kind of Carter’s thing. He shakes his head, admitting for the first time since the briefing that he has no idea how to lead people like this out in the real world. Particularly this real world.

“I’m sorry.”

He turns back to her, surprised.

“I guess I’m…” Sam fades off, knuckles in, and restarts. “Tense.”

Jack feels a smile on his lips that makes her mouth ‘O’ slightly. It’s pleasantly surprising. “It’s hard.” Not just the ‘hey, you, get us out of here or live alone with us _forever_ ’, but the stuff before it. The ‘arm-wrestling, reproductive organs’ stuff.

Sam starts, anxious. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” She insists to the colonel. _Why is there no middle ground between angry and pitying for these people?_

 _Would you_ _stop thinking about arm-wrestling reproductive organs?_ “Right.” Jack offers, turning. _How can you like this attitude? _Though it makes one thing very clear. If they do stay here, he is royally screwed.

Sam winces at his back.

 

* * *

**Seven**

Jack wants to pace, but it’s to the point where that’ll freak people out. So he sticks his hands in his damp pockets and looks for a way to cut the tension. Thirty-one minutes left.

“I’m sorry.” Sam doesn’t dawdle, though she tries not to look to resolute marching directly at the majors. “I overreacted.”

Lou nods her off dutifully. “ ‘S ok.”

“It must be hard.”

 _This is the part where you don’t overreact. _Sam locks her jaw at the now over-used phrase, repeating the mantra. ‘No’ sounds as wrong as ‘yes’, so she settles on a too-formal “as you say” and buries her gaze back in the DHD. They probably won’t bother her if she’s working.

Jack walks up beside her and doesn’t tamp down on a shoulder nudge. _Would you stop touching her?_ He’s always been more of a toucher than a talker, both out of field necessity and relationship habit. Apparently all it takes is some bright blue eyes and too-long legs for the twelve-year-old in him to have none of that. It’s almost a new command style, not being able to lay a hand on a shoulder. _Would you pin on your fucking eagles already?_ “So… six-sevenths of the way home on this round?” He whispers conspiratorially. Odd. That sounded exactly as terrible out loud as it did in his head. His jokes aren’t usually like that. _That’s your ‘cut the tension’ joke? A knife twist?_ He swallows his own revulsion to the idea and schools his features automatically.

Sam bursts out laughing. _Well, that’s an idea._ She doesn’t stop. It’s is clearly the best use of her time. “Sorry,” Sam tucks her chin and tries to get her jaw back under control of her brain. _They’re staring, all of them. Thirty minutes left and you’re laughing like a lunatic._ That must be an encouraging picture.

Lou eyes them both and cocks his head so far to the right that it almost collides with Charlie’s ear. Charlie’s ear is moving though, because he’s laughing. _What the hell, why not?_

Lou chuckles. It feels good. It’s a Jack-ism, though damned if that woman isn’t contagious. Those two’d be dangerous together. He deliberately ignores the twn minutes and ties to picture them making platoon of Jaffa to laugh like this. It works. He gets a little louder, still conscious of their volume. Daniel’s laughing, too. They’re lucky their alien general is kel-nor-sleeping.

 “It doesn’t quite work in sevenths.”

Daniel tilts a question at the younger major. The returning shrug is annoying, but not unexpected. Daniel forces the chuckle and keeps faking his mien. _You’ll find her. You’ll get back, and you’ll find her. You have a year._

Jack has no clue what that means, though he should. _What’d you say before?_ He can’t remember. But her tongue does this thing to her teeth when she says ‘sevenths’ that makes him briefly consider ordering her to round six and eight.

They fall into a much better silence, and Jack’s loathe to check his watch.

Twenty-seven minutes.

 

“Six minutes, campers. Everyone ready? Packed, rinsed, fed, hydrated?” Jack runs through the other checklists in his head and doesn’t actually look at Charlie doing the same.

“What time exactly do we start?” Sam stands up beside her CO, scrolling through her checklists and wiping the mud drops from her sleeveless arms. She hasn’t showered, as she’s basically an electrical engineering textbook on a sunburn-red canvas. It’d been everything she could think of before it started to rain.

Jack manages to look at her. “T minus twenty seconds.”

“ _Before?_ ”

It’s a quick and whispered detour from their still-chuckling mood, but Jack catches it. _She’s scared._ That he’s pushing it too early because of her. “Before.” He confirms.

“But if they’re even a few seconds late unburying the Gate—”

“Carter.” Jack manages to say it lightly, keeping their mood. She gives him a weightless nod that wishes it were a salute and ties her gear back over her shoulders. He watches the adrenaline kick into her posture, and she mostly doesn’t wince. Lateness by the SGC is actually one thing Jack didn’t factor into his calculations. Deliberately. He’s been a squadron commander. Hammond won’t be late.

 

“Three. Two. One. MARK!”

A huge flash immediately explodes in their power crystal, but Sam says “NOW!” instead of cursing.

Jack pivots around Lou to block him from the crackling DHD. The major only has eyes for his wheels. His tolerance is measured in milliseconds. The captain’s telling him colors that must mean something.

“DIAL!”

Teal’c shifts the ring slightly to, “CHEVRON ONE!” He launches off the ground and clears five feet before grabbing the Gate. It groans at the impact. Carter’s hand shoots out uselessly. Jack nudges her back.

“CHEVRON TWO!”

The alien lands with a splat and sprints to the other side of the Gate.

 _You should’ve lined that with rocks._ Jack glances around. It’d take them four minutes if this doesn’t work. Teal’c’s starting to sink into the mud. Jack’s eyes drop to Carter’s, looking for an opening to warn her.

“CHEVRON THREE!”

His captain’s eyes are in twelve more places at once than her hands. The same wheel rarely spins twice. _You need to help._

Teal’c’s already back on Daniel’s side of the Gate.

Sam nods to her CO’s shoulder brush, slowing slightly. “CHEVRON FOUR!” They didn’t practice this in the rain. _It’ll work. It’ll work._

“CHEVRON FIVE!” _It’llworkit’llwork._

“CHEVRON SIX!” Her eyes lock on the Gate, straining to see blue light. _Compensate for unstable fluctuations._

“CHEVRON SEVEN!”

Sam stares for a split second at the violently rippling blue. _Five o’clock ring one._ She tugs the crystal. The waves there stabilize. It looks almost normal. _Yes._ Daniel rushes forward, yelling into the radio. _Two-clock ring-two._ She tugs.

_The sky is falling._

 

* * *

**Fall**

It’s Jack’s first thought.

The Gate pitches _forward_. Teal’c dives, Charlie scrambles. The Gate collides with the rocks that will prop it up.

The _ground_ pitches forward. Charlie flies skyward.

 _You won’t fit._ Jack sheds his gear vaults the DHD. _Earthquake._

 

Her ears ring at the cracking ground. Teal’c and Charlie are too close. _You can’t move! Nine-clock ring-three._ She tugs, forcibly stationary. It’s all she can do. _Save them._ The Gate lurches into the growing crack. _Six-clock ring-two?_ She can barely see it.

Teal’c _tosses_ Charlie skyward as the ground opens up. The blue light swallows him whole.

 _KEEP IT OPEN!_ Sam bolts to her feet, but there’s no rippling to see. The Gate’s fallen too far.A thud beside her, and O’Neill is gone. _Pull the ones that’ll explode._ It’s a terrible strategy. The explosive energy courses right into her body. _Keep it open._

“SAM!”

But she’s got nothing to tell Lou. _This is going to kill you._

 

Daniel is falling. He screams into the radio, punching the GDO. _Open the damn Iris!_ Lou abandons the silent captain and flies at Daniel. They land inches from the chasm. Daniel scrambles backwards, still screaming and tapping into the radio. H-O-L-D. O-P-E-N. H-O-L-D. “NO ANSWER!”

_It’s failing._ It’s face down, Teal’c’s _inside_ it, and it’s failing. _What happens if you get stuck in a Gate?_

Sam doesn’t try to answer. She acts. The only way she can think of.

The clearing explodes around them.

 

Lou shudder to life, arm fully around Daniel. He’d made it just in time, and then… He blinks up at the sky an extra ten feet above him.

“TEAL’C!”

Lou’s attention turns to his CO immediately. He’s already on his feet digging through the rocks. Charlie curses aloud as he moves, holding his arm. Carter’s silent. And more nimble. Lou clutches his own knee, yelling into the rubble. Daniel finds them too, dirt clinging to his bandaged arm. Lou’s got a piece of his glasses in his hand, until he drops it.

 _He’s dead._ Sam throws the rubble recklessly, almost hitting the colonel. _He’s dead._ She scrambles over the felled Gate. It’s tilted on the rocks. He’s under there somewhere. Some part of him, maybe. _You killed him. He did everything you asked perfectly, and you killed him._ The best they’re going to find is a wormhole-decapitated torso. She gags. Her lungs fill with the dust of the fallen and the dead.

 

“Shh!”

Lou and Charlie stop automatically, straining. Carter is stopping, but Jack grabs her into stillness anyway.

Charlie’s never been so happy to see a moving hand in his life. It’s the fastest excavation Daniel’s ever done.

 

 _How the hell are you alive, buddy?_ Lou treats Teal’c’s leg as best he can. A solid inch of his hulking calf muscle is just shaved off. The burns of the event horizon smell like Somalia.

“What the hell was that?” Charlie’s fully conscious, if grateful for adrenaline. Jack pops his shoulder in place. It’s not his only problem, but he’s far better off than the man who threw him to safety. The Jaffa doesn’t even wince.

“Earthquake.” Jack supplies to his 2IC. He keeps his tone clipped. They have to get moving again. _Fifty-three minutes._ Teal’c’s down for the count; Daniel’s trying to talk to him. Charlie’s arm is marginal. Lou’s ignoring his gouged thigh the way Jack is his own sliced shoulder blade. He’d shed his gear, but the original crack was still too narrow. _Too sharp._ Carter’s not looking at him. Jack picks his way to her quickly. _Let’s go, Captain. _“It’s not your fault.” He manages to offer it quietly, he thinks. His ears are still ringing, and they can’t let this slow them down.

“Not an earthquake.” Sam murmurs, awestruck.

Daniel nods. “No.” He looks up from the rapidly kelno’reeming Jaffa. “I guess we know now.” He doesn’t look at Sam. “Why they abandoned the oppidum.”

Sam’s eyes are wet, she knows it. The “Captain” call shakes her from her surreality.

“It’s a mine, Sir. The dialing, the Gate activating, hitting the rocks, the rain. It collapsed a mine.” _You should’ve talked to Daniel._

 _And the plasma-trenching._ Jack squeezes his eyes momentarily. _Don’t ever write off sounds you hear as you shoot plasma into alien bedrock. _You’d think that’d be a skill he’d fucking learned in Spec Ops. Jack looks up, trying to quicken the pace. _Get moving._ “Alright. What now?”

“This is why they broke the DHD.” Sam realizes.

“ _They?_ On _purpose_?” Charlie’s incredulous.

“I didn’t know for sure.” Sam starts in her defense. _You didn’t think it was important to investigate. And now Teal’c’s leg is shaved off in a wormhole._

“ _What now?_ ” ‘Shut up’. Jack forestalls them with more emphasis.

Sam shakes the fog from her head. _No time._ She looks at the Gate, and back at the DHD. They’d fallen almost straight down, except for the Gate itself. She’d tried to ensure that. She sets down the detonator and turns back to the DHD. It’s canted, but upright. She might, might, be able to salvage this.

Jack stares at the box, dumbstruck. He walks up behind her, trying not to seethe. “Carter…” he’s quiet now, he’s sure. “Did you _blow up_ the camp’s C4?” _And you’re blaming the rain for this crater?_

Sam nods. It was about to be abstractedly, but the hate in his voice makes her blood freeze.

“ _Why?_ ”

“I had to get Teal’c out of the Gate.” She keeps her voice even and her gaze fixed forward.

Jack blinks. And looks around. _When you can’t raise the sky,_ “You sunk the floor.” _As_ the Gate fell. Bloody genius.

Sam nods again, ignoring the lump in her throat and the shiver down her spine. “I catalyzed the collapse.” _Sir._ “I couldn’t keep the Gate open.” Teal’c halfway into the horizon. The colonel, Teal’c, Kawalsky, the Gate. _Under_ ground. It was batshit insane but… But she’d take responsibility for it. The whole stupid mess. _For the rest of your life._ Her wheel systems are in ruins. This would be almost impossible to salvage now. She chokes slightly. _They’re alive._

Jack tries not to be dumbstruck. “Carter.” He pulls her up and around, bracing both shoulders. She’s forced on the ‘I _am_ going this time’ look, but he’s learned to read the fear in it now. “Yeah.” The smile goes to places on his face that haven’t seen it in years. “Yeah!” He claps her shoulder. Too hard, she’s still badly beaten. It’s all he has time for.

She smiles anyway.

“What should we do?” He uses the positive she’s just created, magnifying it for all he’s worth. They need it desperately.

Sam has no idea. She opens her mouth. “The locking protocol and the antiphase generators are destroyed.” _Goddamnit._ But she makes herself smile. He’s contagious. _…Teal’c’s bleeding on the floor._ “I might be able to repair them in time, but I suspect we’re going to have to dial twice to get underneath. You could start digging out the Gate.” Her CO turns immediately, but he’s still listening. “Clear the ring enough to let a horizon to form.” He glances back at her in the failing light. “…I’ll tell you when. But even then, we’ll need the stabilizing wave to clear the rubble, and then we’ll have to figure out some way _underneath_ it.” Her eyes search the cavern, looking for leverage.

Jack just nods, already digging into what, now that she mentions it, looks a lot more like a collapsed mine than a fault line. Explains all the cut rock. He pushes a rock and looks around. They can still see the Gate clearly, twilight notwithstanding. He’s shooting for fifteen minutes to get it clear. “Carter.” Jack hears her not quite pause. “Locking protocol first.” She moves and starts again.

_Good point._

 

* * *

**Dig**

Charlie hefts another rock with both hands and gestures to Lou. They move it together. “What _are_ these things?” He doesn’t want it to sound like a complaint. His arm is white hot, but Jack’s trying so hard with their mood.

Daniel shakes his head studiously, trying to move another rock to move without glasses on. “I dunno.”

“Ask him.” Jack doesn’t glance up. He really doesn’t want to bother Teal’c while he’s meditating away his filleted leg. _But you need to stop ignoring shit._ Abandoned towns, creaking bedrock, weird water. No, Colonel Jack O’Neill is more than ready to admit he has no fucking clue what investigate and ignore in alien hellscapes.

Daniel doesn’t object. He picks his way to Teal’c apologetically. It takes a few minutes to formulate a mineralogy-of-a-unknown-planet discussion, in Ancient Egyptian, to an interstellar alien speaking his twenty-somethingth language, who’d just lost a good chunk of flesh to a failing wormhole. Teal’c _does not_ want to talk right now.

“Naquadah.”

Sam’s head shoots up. “It is?”

Daniel nods carefully. “The ore, I think he’s saying.” Some more translating. Teal’c opens both eyes, _stands up_ , and steps over into the felled Gate. Daniel only pauses dumbly for a second. “Yeah. Naquadah.” The Jaffa smears blood walking over the Gate but stays ramrod straight. _How is that mortally possible? …How are you going to beat the others like him?_

“Daniel!”

Daniel looks at her in confusion. Then he smiles because hers is almost glowing the dark.

Sam laughs out loud.

“Captain?” Jack bites down on the impatience. She _was_ right last time.

“Voltage regulation.” It’s the most relieved six syllables Jack’s ever heard. He opts to give her a smile and has to blink when she takes it.

“The Gate is _sitting_ in naqadah. The Gate metal. It’s self-dissipating.” Sam’s grinning like an idiot.

Jack’s not looking at her anymore, but her smile splits his face in two anyway. “Great?” _And Teal’c is standing._ That gets his tone pretty leavened, for being ten feet down in an alien clearing-come-crater with forty minutes left on the clock.

“No noise cancellation. No fluctuation stabilization. We just turn and lock.” _No wonder it worked the first time._

“Turn and lock.” Jack repeats. That sounds… well, actually, it doesn’t sound easy, considering the Gate is facedown and he’s got eight-and-a-half moving arms on six people, but still. Easi _er._ He could do with easier right now. “How’s the locking proto-thing?” He should really find a funnier way to say that somehow.

“Fifteen minutes.” Now that she can use the noise cancellation parts. She’s assembled the locking protocol drive twice already. And she’d made damn sure before disassembling it the first time that she knew how to handle it. Sam glances back down at her arm. “I need light.” She says absently.

Jack stops to spot her, but no one’s particularly surprised when she scales her way out of the cavern without a backward glance. She’s not a rock climber, but Jack’s pretty sure about the gymnast thing now. _Ok, bucko, you’re way too relaxed if you’re about to start thinking that. _He clears another rock with Charlie. Teal’c tosses his first. It’s slower than he predicted because of the metal weight, but they’d get there. _Forty-one minutes._

“CAPTAIN!”

Sam turns back immediately but already hears what’s happening. The grinding noise is deafening against the rocks. “ _In_ coming wormhole?”She clambers down the wall too quickly.

 _No kidding._ Jack tosses a staff weapon to Lou and levels another at the downturned Gate. Carter lands hard beside him and digs out another. The rest are somewhere. _You should’ve found them._ _Chevron five._ He shoots a look at Carter and yanks his head back to the DHD.

 _Chevron six._ Sam studies the spinning ring. The turning scatters more rubble. It might be clear enough to engage like this. She’s not sure that’s a good thing. _…Now what’d I do?_ She blinks at her CO’s glare and then scrambles backwards to the DHD, grabbing the discarded radio just in time. _Chevron seven._

Nothing. Which is no surprise, considering whoever or whatever came through is now face down in a swoosh-shaped naquadah pit. Jack’s captain talks and fiddles with the radio. It sparks violently. She hisses, burnt. Daniel had protected it from the fall, but the metal dust is ubiquitous. _Shit. Check the GDO._ They still have way too many bridges to jump off when they come to them. Daniel punches their code without instruction.

Sam sets down the radio painfully and hefts her staff at the Gate. Her heart races. _Jaffa._

Jack blinks rapidly at the change in lighting and primes his staff at the now empty ring. Nothing moves.

No sound.

Teal’c, unarmed, approaches before Jack thinks it’s wise. Jack stumbles up to him quickly, laying a hand on the general’s arm.

Wow. “ _So_ much better than kleenex.” Jack slides down the newly formed swoosh-hole.

He picks the box up and manages not to kiss it. _Oh shit._ Jack turns immediately and jumps at the perfectly smooth swoosh-walls. _You didn’t think this through very well._ It’s always the simple things that kill you. He’s going to die because they don’t have a ladder.

He jumps again. The butt end of a staff weapon almost cracks him on the head. “Thanks.” _Good call._ He clips the better-than-kleenex, SGC standard issue radio to his belt and grabs on with both hands. It doesn’t move much. There’s a decidedly feminine grunt from dark above.

Sam groans as the weight pulls her almost entirely into the hole. _If he’s stuck down there because you’re not strong enough…_ Kawalsky tightens his good hand on her belt and Lou grabs her knees as she falls further forward.

Jack lurches upward finally. He digs his boots into the wall and wishes swooshes weren’t quite so long. Or slippery with wormy crap. His head almost collides with Carter’s. _You should’ve sent her in here._ He has to climb over her slightly. Four arms grab him. He doesn’t quite land on top of her, but she’s got two of those four good arms and his shoulder bleeds on her shirt. _You need time to bandage that._ He needs time to do a lot of things.

He hands her the radio and takes the staff. “So, now…”

“Now we need a way into that hole with the Gate active.”

Jack nods. He doesn’t have to voice the other issue. Lou is already poking at the inner ring. The grinding sounds hadn’t been promising for manual turning. Daniel joins him. Teal’c sits cross-legged. The bandages are soaked red.

Charlie squints around, kicking at the rubble. _There has to be something._ “Jack!” He stabs his staff into the ground.

It collapses.

 _Again!?_ Jack runs for his 2IC as the major stumbles back from the brink. Touching stuff he shouldn’t is _not_ in _Charlie’s_ job description.

Oh. _Sweet._ “That could work.” And this time Jack actually thinks before climbing into the new hole. It’s shallow; his head sticks out.

He feels around. The rock mostly crumbles. He hopes that’s a good thing. The fissure is tight, probably natural, but they could widen it enough for Teal’c. It sticks under the Gate. There’s only about six inches between its tip and the swoosh-hole. Then Charlie hands him a staff weapon and Jack realizes just how tricky it is to dig six inches sideways in a two-foot fissure with a nine-foot staff. He thinks on it. “Carter! How we doing?”

Sam grimaces. They’re all going to die again, so basically status quo.

“Carter.” Her silence might as well be saying ‘we’re in trouble’, but he’s not about to climb out of here to prod her.

“It’s dangerous.”

 _There’s a revelation._ Jack doesn’t have a monopoly on this thought.

“The secondary power source was damaged in the collapse.” Along with everything else. “I’m not sure how exactly, but I don’t think anything’s controlling its discharge rate anymore.”

“Carter!” _Whoops._

 _Whoops._ “The Gate will self-dissipate into the naquadah, but it may also discharge too far. It could shock us. It might blow up.”

So they’re back to that line, then. Jack hadn’t missed it. “So what do we do?”

“Hope it doesn’t.” Sam’s surprised at her own delivery. It’s what she’s got. _Unless you want to lift the twenty-nine ton ring out of the ten-foot hole._

“Ok then.” Jack’s good with simple. Charlie smirks. Lou starts jack-hammering a staff weapon into the swoosh-wall. He can’t cut through the swooshed surface. Lou shoots him a look. _Absolutely not, Major._ They are _not_ shooting things anymore. At least not yet.

“Carter.” Jack almost rolls his eyes at himself. _What are you, four? ‘Mom. Mom. Mom. MOM!’_

 _Did you just sigh at a full-bird colonel?_ “Yes. Yes?”

“You have anything… pokey?”

 _Eh?_ Sam stands up and looks at him. It takes her eyes a second to adjust; the moonslight is starting to hit him. Or what’s exposed of her CO, which is mostly just naquadah-colored hair. _Oh._ Poke. “Uh, yeah.” She thinks for a second about which crystals to use. Daniel retrieves them himself, so she doesn’t have to leave.“They’re very strong.” _Sir._ “I don’t need those back. I think.”

Jack eyes his blue one. They really are sort of beautiful. He wasn’t planning on losing it.

Damn, they are strong.

 

* * *

**Grave**

The rock is brittle after they break the swooshed surface. Jack thinks hard enough to conclude that means only the low-metal ore is left, but not hard enough to decide what that means. It seems like a good balance.

Lou’s staff weapon almost stabs him in the hand as their make it through the wall. Jack sets down the crystal and takes the staff from him. They still need to widen it by two feet for Teal’c to fit. He’ll be able to do most of it without getting back in.

 _Twenty-one minutes._ He makes it another nine before his shoulders decide to fall off. “Carter!” _‘Mom!’ Shut up._ “You ready?”

No, but “Ready to test locking.”

Charlie nods readiness, and all four human men sit and brace the inner ring. It turns. Chevron one, encoded. Teal’c doesn’t stir. Lou switches back onto hole enlarging duty. Jack takes a few minutes to hover unhelpfully over his captain. It’s still raining. _Huh. You are totally out of it._ He’s tunnel-visioned. It’s dangerous. Jack hates not having anything to do, but he takes three minutes to try to re-find the big picture. Now’s not the time to miss something.

“Carter.” _Why do you like saying that so much?_ “How long?”

Sam exhales carefully. She might catch something else staring at it, she might not. She might catch something else _not_ thinking about it. “You need something?”

“Yeah.”

He hands her a crystal thirty seconds later, and she drops into the fissure. She fits all the way, but they only need another foot deep widened for Teal’c to crawl in and through the jack-hammered trench. _Seven minutes._ “Carter.”

“Yes.”

She’s strained, wheezing at the dust that can’t escape the hole. “Can we dial twice?” Radio for more time?

“Maybe.” She coughs, panting. He wishes he could tell her to slow down. “Probably not.”

Jack nods. Though they will if Teal’c can’t fit.

 _I told you you were tunnel-visioned. _“Hey!” Attention. “So we turn the ring. Lock. Swoosh. Radio. Into the fissure and through the wall.” _To grandmother’s house we go._ Jokes take too long now. “Then?”

“We…” Sam trails off, still chipping at the fissure. They fall directly downward.

“Jump at the Gate?” Daniel supplies.

Sam coughs but doesn’t pause. “It’s not that simple. The two Gates are at different orientations. Even if you could coordinate through the wormhole well enough to jump or grab on,” another cough, “gravity acts differently on the matter on either side as it transitions through the wormhole.”

“Meaning?” _Carter._

“I have no idea.”

“You _what?_ ” Both their sentences come out in a rush. _Five minutes._

Sam barely pauses to wipe the sweat from her hands. _Too slow!_ “I wanted to test the net effects of non-orthogonal gravitational distributions on transitory nervous system control, but I wasn’t allowed through the Gate.” The last part is too pointed even with their speed and the dust in her lungs.

Jack strains to clear another rock with Charlie. _Now do you get why the geeks were supposed to go first, ya Grunt?_ “Solution, Captain.”

“Can’t we knock our own Gate down?” Lou asks, moving a boulder to free the inner ring. It rotates by hand now, but faster is better. Jack helps Daniel, though he’s still watching Carter. _Fix it, Captain. Three minutes._

Jack’s captain wrinkles a naquadah-gray sunburned forehead. She’s calculating. “Not as quickly as we need it. Unless we dial twice.” Jack feels the eyes on him as they work. He’s getting really sick of deciding how they’ll die. “And there’s another problem.”

_Not what I asked for, Carter._

_Why’s it always the simple things that’ll kill us all?_ “I don’t know which way is up.” Not that they had many choices on orientation.

Jack’s brow wrinkles. _Oh shit._ “And the Gate is…”

“Twenty-one feet, tree-and-a-half inches tall.”

“We’re jumping out a second story window.” It’s his fault. _She tells you a giant symmetrical ring might fall down, and you don’t mark which way is up?_ He’ll be lucky to get a job at IKEA when he’s done here.

“There’s only a twenty percent chance of something like that.” Sam coughs and looks at her CO. He nods. It’s wide enough for Teal’c. “Though alternatively we could end up jumping directly into the Gate ramp and fall through backwards.” She climbs out and heads for the DHD. They’re talking well given the time crunch.

“What does Teal’c say?” Jack drags another rock.

“The Goa’uld don’t knock down their Stargates.” Daniel hadn’t meant to sound quite so ‘stupid humans’ about it, but Teal’c’s tone had been pretty clear.

Two minutes.

Charlie nods to him, flexing his arm. Jack doesn’t dawdle. “We go. Now. Grab on or jump center and try not to break your necks.” To their credit, everyone just nods. Daniel wakes Teal’c. He does fit at a squeeze and a crawl.

It only takes another forty seconds. “Three. Two. One. MARK!”

Another flash. Another “NOW!” Sam turns the friction drive. “CHEVRON ONE.”

She’s alone at the DHD. There’s too much friction; everyone else dialing. The vein in the colonel’s forehead is bulging even from ten feet away.

The wheels turn again. “CHEVRON TWO.”

“CHEVRON THREE.” _We’re too slow._ The air’s starting to hum electrically.

“CHEVRON FOUR.”

Sparks are crackling along the ground. Jack suddenly regrets having everyone as close to the fissure as possible. They’re all in one place.

“CHEVRON FIVE.”

It’s already taken almost a minute.

“CHEVRON SIX.”

Charlie jerks as a lightning bolt shoots across the Gate and cracks right in front of him.

“CHEVRON SEVEN.”

Lou rolls directly into the fissure. Three men follow him. One bolts backwards. Carter doesn’t move. Daniel collides with Lou’s back.

“Major Charles Kawalsky for Colonel Jack O’Neill! Open Iris Code Fife-Wun-Tree-“

_NO!_

 

Daniel reaches out frantically for the radio. The flash blinded him. His heart’s too fast. “Doctor Daniel Jackson. Code Fife-Wun-Tree-Six-Too-Ait-Niner!” He shakes Charlie with one hand and Teal’c with his third. He can almost see shadows. “JACK!” Something rolls over top of him.

Jack tosses her over his shoulders. His ears are buzzing but he’s good enough around flash-bangs to sometimes get lucky with lightening. Not her. She was _touching_ the DHD.

“All Clear, Doctor Jackson!”

“Six people, all friendlies! Hold fire!” Daniel squints at the shadow figures. Teal’c lifts Lou out of the fissure. He’s unconscious. _What’re you...?_ One hand stabs into the wound on Lou’s thigh. The blood shows up in full color.

“Holding Fire!”

Teal’c sets him down at the pained yelled and levels a pointed look and a shove. Lou goes dizzily, sliding under the Gate.

Jack stumbles, holding her harder. Sparks are skittering across the floor.

Daniel drops into the fissure and stabs the butt of a staff weapon into Charlie’s shoulder. The major bolts awake, but Teal’c has to wrestle him into the trench when Daniel clears.

 _You can’t fit with her._ Jack doesn’t stop. He grabs blindly for Carter’s limp hand and bites it. There’s blood in his mouth. _Wake up, damnit!_

Teal’c is waiting for them. He jumps in, missing flesh and all, and Jack doesn’t hesitate to hand her off and follow. They rip every surface of skin and cloth.

Teal’c nods to him under the glow of the wormhole. _Go._ Teal’c’s a tight squeeze, but he jumps from the trench almost dead center through the Gate. Jack’s not going to pull that off. “CARTER!” He bites whatever he finds first. He’s not even sure she has a pulse. He throws her upward as far as he can and jumps into the sky.

* * *

52:00:01

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end of the beginning, folks! See you in "Hit the Sky". Just a note, I will probably polish Chapter 15 to a separate, standalone-ish story at some point. Sorry in advance for that reorganizational confusion.


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